Friday in Bahrain | Ferrari and Red Bull in top form, Mercedes in trouble

The first free practice session got off to a quiet start with a number of installation laps. Then, after ten minutes, the red flag was waved for the first time because the asphalt was littered with pieces of side pod from Esteban Ocon's car.

Ten minutes later the light went green again and Max Verstappen took the opportunity to clock a fast lap time. He did so on the C2 tyre, this weekend the medium compound.

Red Bull strong, Mercedes in trouble

Where Red Bull Racing seemed to be going for the wind, it slowly started to become clear that Mercedes was not quite bluffing when the team claimed time and again that they were not in such good shape. Other teams have largely solved the problems with porpoising, but Mercedes is still plagued by the problem.

In order to get to the bottom of the leak, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were sent to the track with different specifications. With this, Mercedes hopes to partially solve the problems, but the team has already let it be known that they 'cannot gain more than a few tenths'.

Gasly surprises with fastest time in FP1

At the end of FP1, a surprising name appeared at the top of the timesheets: no Ferrari or Red Bull driver, but Pierre Gasly set the fastest time in his AlphaTauri car. He did so on the soft tyre (C3), while Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen set their fastest times on the C2 tyre.

The second free practice was more representative of qualifying and the race due to the similar conditions, and so most drivers were on the track immediately in the evening session.

Ferrari and Red Bull in top form

Ferrari opened strongly and led the timesheet with Leclerc and Sainz, respectively, setting their fastest times on the C2 tyre. Verstappen and Sergio Perez took it easy for a while. The same was true for Hamilton, whose W13 was undergoing a lot of tinkering by Mercedes.

While Hamilton complained about his car on the radio, Verstappen split the Ferrari's and set a provisional second time behind Leclerc. Twenty minutes into the session, they mostly switched to the C3 compound and picked up the pace, with the standout being Kevin Magnussen, who took over the second time from Verstappen.

The times were continuously improved from that point on. When Verstappen returned to the track, he immediately snatched first place from Leclerc by setting a time of 1:31.936. The Ferrari driver managed to close Verstappen to 0.087 seconds, but did not improve the fastest time.

Haas surprises with fast times

The surprise of the day came in the form of Haas: Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen clocked eighth and tenth fastest times respectively. Schumacher even beat the Mercedes of Hamilton with that. Although no points are distributed for it, for Haas it was an unexpectedly good result.