Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel will start on pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix tomorrow, ahead of the two Ferrari drivers, Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, who qualified 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Fernando Alonso set the fastest lap in Saturday Practice, beating Mercedes GP’s Nico Rosberg by 0.269secs with a 1:51.099. Red Bull’s Mark Webber was third and Michael Schumacher fourth.
The slowest time was set by Bruno Senna in the HRT, just under 10secs off the pace of Alonso. Senna might have been slow, but at least he will be able to race, which is more than can be said for his teammate Karun Chandhok, who, due to various hydraulics issues was unable to compete in any of the practice sessions, meaning he did not complete the required lap quota and will have to wait ’till the next round in Melbourne before having his first taste of racing in F1.
Both Ferrari’s of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa will have new engines ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Felipe Massa, who qualified 2nd, has had his engine he used up to qualifying yesterday replaced as a completely precautionary step, as it is showing abnormal parameters. Similar abnormalities showed up in 3rd place qualifier Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari Type 56 engine, meaning it has also been replaced.
Neither driver will be penalised for these changes: you only get a penalty if you change engines twice in a weekend or exceed the 8 engines-per-season limit. Also in accordance with the rules, the replaced engines can be used in future practice sessions.
Nico Rosberg set the fastest lap on Friday Practice 2 in Bahrain, beating Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher who were 2nd and 3rd respectively.
As with in Friday practice 1, Karun Chandhok got no running in the HRT due to technical issues, and therefore does not feature in my graphs below. Neither does Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi, who set no timed laps due to a problem with the STR5.