Bahrain GP Practice

Posted on Friday 24 Apr 2009 and tagged with bahrain, sakhir.

Practice 1, 10.00-11.30hrs
10.30: Bourdais completes the first flying lap, 1m38.697s.
10.31: Bourdais improves to 1m36.790s.
10.33: Räikkönen spins at T3.
10.35: Rosberg goes fastest for Williams, 1m36.069s.
10.36: Räikkönen laps in 1m36.055s.
10.38: Bourdais laps in 1m35.803s, Rosberg improves to 1m34.845s.
10.40: Rosberg laps in 1m34.363s.
10.43: Alonso locks up and runs wide at T10.
10.45: Hamilton laps in 1m34.189s, Fisichella slithers off at T10.
10.47: Hamilton laps in 1m33.647s.
11.24: Buemi runs wide at T7 and then pulls off the circuit. He takes no further part in the session.
11.30: Button runs wide at T14. Session ends with Hamilton fastest from Heidfeld, Kubica, Rosberg, Button and Kovalainen. Nakajima is 11th in the second Williams.

Practice 2, 14.00-15.30hrs
14.09: Glock runs wide and continues.
14.21: Piquet spins at T10.
14.26: Toyotas top the times, with Trulli ahead of Glock.
14.31: Buemi runs wide at Turn 10.
14.35: Hamilton goes wide at Turn 8.
14.38: Sutil sets sector 1 best and goes fourth for Force India.
14.50: Vettel goes second fastest for Red Bull.
15.01: Glock runs wide at T14.
15.12: Alonso goes second fastest for Renault.
15.08: Massa sets first sub 1m36s lap (1m35.832s) to go fastest, Raikkonen is second, 0.19s slower.
15.13: Raikkonen goes quicker again with a 1m35.707s.
15.20: Rosberg sets the quickest time of the day, 1m33.339s.
15.30: Session finishes with Rosberg fastest from Alonso, Trulli, Vettel, Webber and Button. Nakajima is 10th for Williams.

Nico Rosberg:
You can only ever compare your performance to other race weekends so, relatively, I think we are looking ok. We’ve done a lot of set-up work today and I am quite happy with everything so we’ve made good progress. The team brought some new parts to Bahrain and they seem to be working well so thanks to our aero guys for their continuing hard work in developing the car. I am really convinced that we will be able to do something positive at this race and to get the points that the car is worth.

Kazuki Nakajima:
Today didn’t go too badly but we are lacking some pace compared to Nico. I’ll now de-brief with my engineers to try to find out where I’m losing that time so I can make it up in tomorrow’s qualifying. The circuit is getting better and better the more laps we do, which is good. It’s also really hot out there, but fortunately it’s bearable.

(Note: Only Nico Rosberg is running with the team’s new aero parts, Kazuki Nakajima will have them for the Spanish GP.)

Practice Results

Top Three Drivers

Position	Driver & Lap Time (Session 1)	Driver & Lap Time (Session 2)
1	L Hamilton 1:33.647	N Rosberg 1:33.339
2	N Heidfeld 1:33.907	F Alonso 1:33.530
3	R Kubica 1:33.938	J Trulli 1:33.616

AT&T Williams Classification

Driver	Chassis & Engine	1st Session Laptime	2nd Session Laptime
N Rosberg	FW31-03 / H450	1:34.227 (4th) 24 laps	1:33.339 (1st) 36 laps
K Nakajima	FW31-04 / H452	1:34.880 (11th) 24 laps	1:33.899 (10th) 36 laps