Bahrain Grand Prix: Pierre Gasly tops charts at opening practice of 2022 Formula 1 season
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Updated 18/03/2022 at 14:20 GMT
Defending champion Max Verstappen finished fifth in free practice one, +0.549 seconds back on Alpha Tauri's Pierre Gasly, while Lewis Hamilton struggled in placing seventh. Hamilton's new Mercedes team-mate George Russell took fourth. It was a Ferrari two-three as Charles Leclerc led home Carlos Sainz.
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In what was a tricky first free practice session for the drivers to negotiate ahead of this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix, Pierre Gasly set the pace with a 1:34:193, whilst championship favourites Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton finished fifth and seventh respectively.
An early red flag after Esteban Ocon lost a huge part of his sidepod along the home straight hampered the teams' run plans, but once the session got back underway, it was Verstappen who initially set the pace.
However, with all the teams on slightly different run plans and the wind seemingly affecting more than others, the times were slow to come in.
But with around 15 minutes left, Gasly popped in what would be the quickest time of the session on the soft compound (C3) tyre.
Despite a spin on the exit of turn 11, Charles Leclerc set the second quickest time of the session, three-tenths off of Gasly's time, but crucially on the slightly harder C2 medium compound. His Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz was just behind in third, having had a drama-free practice whilst George Russell was fourth quickest for Mercedes.
The Brit wasn't entirely comfortable however, complaining about the wind over the team radio, explaining that he felt the car was "very affected" by it.
After setting the pace early on in the session, Verstappen ended up fifth on the C2 compound with Lance Stroll splitting him and Hamilton, who much like his teammate, struggled with the balance of the Mercedes.
Fernando Alonso was eighth, Yuki Tsunoda was ninth and Sergio Perez was 10th.
Rookie Guanyu Zhou set the 11th quickest time on the red-walled soft compound tyres - all the more important given his Alfa Romeo teammate Valtteri Bottas only managed to put two laps on the board, after suffering a misfire throughout the session. He was 20th.
Ocon recovered from his earlier issues to set the 12th fastest time whilst Nicholas Latifi was 13th.
Nico Hulkenberg was set the 14th fastest time, having spent a lot of the session learning how exactly these 2022 cars handle, after the German received a late call-up to race this weekend as a result of Sebastian Vettel's positive Covid-19 test.
Alexander Albon was 15th whilst the McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo spent most of the session tryin to solve the brake-cooling issues that affected them so badly in the pre-season test last week. They ended up 16th and 17th respectively.
The HAAS drivers were 18th and 19th with Mick Schumacher just beating Kevin Magnussen by a tenth of a second.
Free practice two will give a better indication of where everyone stands due to it taking place at the same time qualifying, and also the race starts.
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