F1 News: Hamilton leads Mercedes 1-2 in Bahrain Practice 2

Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell turned the two fastest times in Practice 2 for the Bahrain GP, but everyone is sandbagging.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Hamilton’s lap of 1m30.374s beats his Mercedes teammate by 0.206s.

Quite strong winds were the order of the day, as well as much cooler temperatures than usual for the Bahrain Grand Prix and to a lesser extent to those experienced at last week’s test, with the mercury dropping below 20° for air temperature in FP2. It should be noted that this event is taking place a bit earlier in the year than usual

All drivers set their times on the soft Pirelli tires and in the final 30 minutes, everyone switched to race simulations, where Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was easily fastest. His times were consistently fastest with very little tire degradation of his Red Pirelli tires.

Fernando Alonso was third for Aston Martin, and close to Russell’s time, 0.286s behind Hamilton. Mercedes-powered cars were 1-2-3.

Carlos Sainz Jr. was 4th for Ferrari, 0.395s behind while Oscar Piastri was fifth fastest thanks to his session-best middle sector, which ensured Verstappen could only end the session in sixth – just 0.477s off Hamilton’s best.

Daniel Ricciardo, fastest in Practice 1, could only manage 12th best in this session.

It is assumed we have not seen everyone’s performance runs until qualifying.

How do we know? Nico Hulkenberg was just 0.520s behind in the Haas. There is no way that car is almost as fast as the Red Bulls.

Lando Norris sat at the bottom of the timing boards having abandoned his initial soft-tire lap, and further difficulties prompted him to ask for a steering wheel switch.

Did Mercedes turn their engines up?

It’s so hard to tell. The experts will crunch their way through the data later on, and the suspicion is that Mercedes possibly ran their engine at a slightly higher mode than the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull.

Bahrain GP Practice 2 Results