Free Practice 2: Mercedes on Top with Rosberg Ahead of Hamilton

Mercedes strikes hard during the second free practice session as part of the Bahrain GP. Indeed, the four cars it powers occupy the top four places in the session. The accolade goes to Nico Rosberg, who holds the fastest time this afternoon. His teammate Michael Schumacher is third. Thus, Lewis Hamilton is second while Jenson Button is in fourth place.

Rosberg regained the first place after only 20 minutes, and the only small change for the German was the improvement of his time a quarter of an hour later, setting it at 1.55.409. Since then, and this concerns many drivers, the stints have become longer, and the times have remained relatively stable.

Hamilton’s best lap (2nd) is 0.4 seconds behind Rosberg. The former world champion mentioned the rapid wear of his hard tires after just a few minutes. Schumacher is half a second behind his teammate in third position but has a 0.2-second lead over Button.

The two Red Bull teams experienced a particularly difficult session. Sebastian Vettel is the best of the quartet of drivers in fifth position, but made two off-track excursions in the final corner, while his teammate Mark Webber was relegated to the background. In fact, he remained in the pits for most of his time due to a transmission problem after five laps.

At Toro Rosso, Sébastien Buemi spent the entire afternoon in the pits as the team worked on an issue at the rear of his car. His teammate Jaime Alguersuari narrowly avoided obstacles when he ran wide on a curb belonging to the new section of the circuit. In the end, the Spaniard was only 16th and the Swiss 23rd with his installation lap.

Nico Hülkenberg enters the top six for Williams, ahead of Felipe Massa driving the best of the Ferraris. His teammate, Fernando Alonso, finishes ninth behind Vitaly Petrov for Renault. The Russian lost his headrest at a braking point early in the session without any serious consequences, fortunately, and then showed an encouraging pace.

Pedro de la Rosa completes the top ten for Sauber, followed by his teammate Kamui Kobayashi and the morning leader Adrian Sutil (Force India).

We find Rubens Barrichello’s second Williams in 13th position followed by Vitantonio Liuzzi’s second Force India and Robert Kubica’s second Renault in 14th and 15th positions respectively. This time, it’s Lotus that emerged as the fastest of the new teams as Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli moved ahead of the Virgin drivers at the end of the session. The duo had been running with a large amount of fuel for most of the afternoon, but went lighter on their final runs. Kovalainen and Trulli are about 5.5 seconds off the leader and rank ahead of Timo Glock and Luca di Grassi.

Bruno Senna completed his first practice sessions for Hispania by completing 17 laps and was 12.5 seconds off Rosberg’s pace. However, his session ended with a small scare as his car swerved under braking in the first corner and slid off track. His teammate Karun Chandhok spent the day on the sidelines as his Dallara-made single-seater is not yet ready to race. The Indian will join the rest of the lineup tomorrow for the final practice sessions.

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Results of Free Practice 2 – Bahrain GP – Friday, March 12, 2010: