Raikkonen leads Bottas in first practice

The Finn used Pirelli's super-soft tyres to post a 1m36.074s, outpacing Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas by 0.045 seconds as Ferrari enjoyed another strong start following its victory in Bahrain.

Lewis Hamilton finished third, over sixth tenths off the pace, after going off track several times during the 90 minutes, with championship leader Sebastian Vettel fifth after a less-than-perfect session of his own.

Following a brief yellow-flag period early when Sergey Sirotkin stopped on track in Nico Hulkenberg's Renault, Hamilton moved to the top of the times with a 1m39.558s in his first run on soft tyres.

Vettel posted his first time nearly 25 minutes in, the Ferrari driver going quickest with a 1m38.709s.

He did not last long on top, however, as Bottas used the super-soft tyres to outpace the German by more than 1.3s with a 1m36.998s, but Vettel stayed on track and improved to halve that margin.

Before the 30-minute mark, Hamilton moved into second in the super-soft-shod Mercedes - six tenths behind his team-mate - but Bottas went even quicker on the fourth lap of his run to set a new benchmark of 1m36.119s.

Hamilton also improved, but fell 0.562s short of Bottas's best.

Daniel Ricciardo and Bottas fell victim to the slippery track surface, both running off track, while Hamilton had a bigger scare, becoming the first driver to hit the newly-installed speed bumps at Turn 2 as he overshot the braking point.

Halfway through the session, only the Mercedes drivers and Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz Jr had run on the super-softs, before Sergio Perez joined them with 30 minutes remaining to jump up to third.

At the same time, Raikkonen moved to the top with his 1m36.074s on the same compound, before the Force India of Perez's team-mate Esteban Ocon shed its engine cover at Turn 2, bringing out the red flag.

Vettel was one of the first drivers to leave the pits as the action resumed, on super-softs, but a mistake on his first flying lap at Turn 13 meant he failed to improve despite setting the quickest time in the middle sector.

His second attempt did not go to plan either, spinning at Turn 16 after running too aggressively over the kerbs and managing to keep the car off the kerbs.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen improved late in the session to move up to fourth, jumping Vettel with a run on super-softs.

Ricciardo was sixth in the second Red Bull, ahead of Perez, Williams pair Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll, and Ocon.

Fernando Alonso was the best of the McLaren-Hondas in 13th, while team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne's morning finished early, reporting "no power" as he cruised back to the pits in the closing minutes.