@PierreGASLY heads @ScuderiaFerrari duo in #BahrainGP FP1. #F1

Gasly Bahrain GP FP1 – Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was quickest in the opening FP1 session at the Bahrain GP ahead of Ferrari pairing Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in Formula 1’s new era of cars designed for closer and competitive racing.

 

 

In the first competitive session of 2022, the Frenchman completed his qualifying simulation run with 12 minutes left on the clock to top the time-sheets.

 

Fitted with Pirelli’s C3 red side-walled new 18-inch softer rubber, Gasly set the benchmark of a 1:34.193 to end FP1 quickest over Leclerc by 0.364 seconds.

 

That compared with the Bahrain pre-season testing topping 1:31.720 posted by Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen on the softer and quicker C5 tyre, which is not available for selection this weekend.

 

Meanwhile, the reigning world champion also landed pole position at last year’s season opening Bahrain Grand Prix with a 128.997 in the previous era of cars.

 

Leclerc was the first to hit the Bahrain International Circuit – his Ferrari F1-75 featured an aero rake at the rear – with the Monegasque-youngster leading the pack out in-front of Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s Valtteri Bottas.

 

But as nine of the 20 cars immediately hit the track, Bottas was forced to return to the pits after his Ferrari-powered C42 racer suffered misfires and the Finn slowly travelled back to the pits.

 

Leclerc initially used the slower white-marked C1 harder compound to set the early pace with a 1:45.601, but was immediately relegated back from a flurry of activity.

 

This left the McLaren pairing of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, running the softer rubber, to hit the top of the order with the former posting a 1:36.584 to pip the latter by 0.3 seconds.

 

The session was then red flagged to remove debris on the pit-straight, which had been deposited by BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon after the sidepod bodywork of his A522 racer shot off.

 

The failure seven minutes in showered the Aston Martin AMR22 of Lance Stroll in carbon fibre, whilst his team-mate Nico Hulkenberg – taking the place of Sebastian Vettel who was hit with coronavirus – battled locking up his front tyres at turn eight.

 

After the marshals cleared the circuit of the debris following a 13-minute suspension, the other Alpine A522 entry of Fernando Alonso returned to the pit-lane first for a practice start in-front of Ferrari’s Sainz.

 

Alonso was the first driver to demote the McLaren pairing at the top as the Spaniard ran the C3 softer tyre setting a 1:35.247 to find 1.3 seconds over Norris before Verstappen used the C2 yellow-branded mediums to gain another 0.4 seconds and hit P1 with a 1:34.783 effort.

 

Verstappen rapidly improved by another four hundredths and progressed his way down to a 1:34.742 as Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez was 0.3 seconds behind in second.

 

After a lull of on-track action, with 17 of the 20 cars returning to the pits, it ended with 19 minutes remaining as qualifying simulations was on the order of all the team’s practice programmes.

 

Mercedes’ George Russell emerged on the C3 red side-walled softs, with the Silver Arrows still suffering from porpoising issues after also losing bodywork at the opening corner, and gave the Briton the chance to go fastest on a 1:34.629 to pip ahead of Verstappen by 0.1 seconds with 15 minutes left.

 

Sainz overcame traffic caused by Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen to bring the times down further and the Spaniard was joined at the top by Ferrari team-mate Leclerc – who recovered from a spin at turn 11 when he looked to jump on the power too early – using the C2 mediums.

 

Both Ferrari drivers were demoted by AlphaTauri’s Gasly who posted the 1:34.193 benchmark on the softs, which remained as the session’s best effort.

 

Leclerc and Sainz were second and third respectively for the Scuderia, in-front of Mercedes’ Russell and Red Bull’s Verstappen who completed the top five with the latter sticking to the mediums in the closing stages.

 

Aston Martin’s Stroll ended opening practice in sixth and ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton down in seventh, whilst Alpine’s Alonso took eighth and the other AlphaTauri AT03 of Yuki Tsunoda ninth and Perez rounding out the top ten in the second Red Bull RB18.

 

Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN rookie Zhou Gunayu ran an impressive 11th. in-front of Alpine’s Ocon (12th), Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi who finished FP1 in 13th and Aston Martin’s Hulkenberg taking 14th.

 

The other Williams FW44 entry of Alexander Albon was 15th and ahead of the McLaren duo of Norris and Ricciardo who were 16th and 17th respectively.

 

Haas F1 Team pairing Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin were 18th and 19th respectively with the aforementioned Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s Bottas bringing up the rear.

 

You can see the full Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2022 Free Practice 1 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1124/bahrain/practice-1.html

 

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#Formula1 Gulf Air #BahrainGP and 2022 Season Preview. #F1