Bahrain: Sutil tops morning track cleaning session
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| Adrian Sutil |
Adrian Sutil set the fastest time in the first free practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix for Force India. The time may be irrelevant, however, since the session was more an exercise in cleaning and rubbering in the track surface.
The German edged double world champion and pre-season favorite Fernando by just 0.183s.
Robert Kubica provided another surprise by going third fastest for Renault, 0.458s back from Sutil, and less than three tenths faster than Felipe Massa's second Ferrari.
The McLarens of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton were next up.
Vitantonio Liuzzi proved the pace of the Force India in seventh ahead of Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber and the returning Michael Schumacher – who was more than 0.4s slower than Rosberg, his Mercedes teammate.
Results
|
Pos |
Driver | Team | Time | Behind | Laps |
| 1. | Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1:56.583 | +0.000 | 18 |
| 2. | Alonso | Ferrari | 1:56.766 | +0.183 | 18 |
| 3. | Kubica | Renault | 1:57.041 | +0.458 | 19 |
| 4. | Massa | Ferrari | 1:57.055 | +0.472 | 19 |
| 5. | Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1:57.068 | +0.485 | 19 |
| 6. | Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1:57.163 | +0.580 | 19 |
| 7. | Liuzzi | Force India-Mercedes | 1:57.194 | +0.611 | 19 |
| 8. | Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:57.199 | +0.616 | 15 |
| 9. | Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1:57.255 | +0.672 | 17 |
| 10. | Schumacher | Mercedes | 1:57.662 | +1.079 | 16 |
| 11. | Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1:57.722 | +1.139 | 18 |
| 12. | Hulkenberg | Williams-Cosworth | 1:57.894 | +1.311 | 20 |
| 13. | Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1:57.943 | +1.360 | 17 |
| 14. | Buemi | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1:58.399 | +1.816 | 13 |
| 15. | Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 1:58.782 | +2.199 | 11 |
| 16. | Petrov | Renault | 1:58.880 | +2.297 | 13 |
| 17. | de la Rosa | Sauber-Ferrari | 2:00.250 | +3.667 | 18 |
| 18. | Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 2:01.388 | +4.805 | 11 |
| 19. | Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 2:03.680 | +7.097 | 8 |
| 20. | Kovalainen | Lotus-Cosworth | 2:03.848 | +7.265 | 21 |
| 21. | Trulli | Lotus-Cosworth | 2:03.970 | +7.387 | 15 |
| 22. | di Grassi | Virgin-Cosworth | NT | N/A | 2 |
| 23. | Senna | HRT-Cosworth | NT | N/A | 3 |
| 24. | Chandhok | HRT-Cosworth | NT | N/A | 0 |