Ricciardo puts VCARB on top in first Bahrain GP practice

Daniel Ricciardo ended first practice at the Bahrain Grand Prix fastest for the Visa Cash App RB team ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Ricciardo shot to the top of the first official time sheet of the season with a best lap of 1m32.869s. The Australian was one of the few drivers to use the soft tire during the hour. Norris, likewise on softs, lapped just 0.032s behind his former McLaren teammate.

Oscar Piastri and Yuki Tsunoda followed in third and fourth, both also making use of the softest compound to get within 0.244s and 0.314s of the leader.

The soft tire was figured to be approximately one second quicker than the medium during preseason testing last week.

FP1 in Bahrain is generally regarded as unrepresentative given its afternoon setting ahead of night-time qualifying and the grand prix, and few other teams appeared to attempt genuine performance runs — though air temperature remained cool, at 66 degrees F, with the track rising to 91 degrees F.

Fernando Alonso was fastest among the medium-shod runners, putting his Aston Martin fifth and 0.324s off the pace. It was enough to relegate Max Verstappen to sixth by 0.045s.

Verstappen was vociferous on team radio about perceived issues with the car. “Everything is f***ing miles off,” he lamented after his first runs, which had put him at the top of the order. His later laps were affected by inconsistent downshifts, though it wasn’t serious enough to curtail his time on track.

Mercedes teammates George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were seventh and ninth, sandwiching Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Both teams remained focused on data gathering rather than headline times.

Valtteri Bottas used the soft tire to complete the top 10. Carlos Sainz clocked the 11th-quickest time ahead of Sergio Perez, Alex Albon and Lance Stroll.

Zhou Guanyu was 15th in a troubled session for his Stake car, which developed what he reported to be a brake problem and required a long spell in his garage. He ended the hour with a session-low 16 laps.

Logan Sargeant was 16th ahead of Alpine teammates Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, who were a whopping 1.9s and 2.2s off the pace.

Ocon complained that his car was “super inconsistent” during the hour, though the team put that at least partly down to the blustery conditions around the track. The French team hinted at concerns ahead of the weekend that it was braced for a very difficult start to the season with its all-new car.

Haas teammates Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg propped up the time sheet after an hour focused on long-run pace. The continuing laser-like focus on tire management, carrying over from testing, left them 3.6s and 5.1s off the pace respectively, having eschewed the chance for a qualifying-style lap.