F1 Bahrain GP live commentary and updates - FP1
Follow along for F1 action at Bahrain's FP1 session, which includes six rookie drivers
Live Commentary
By: Jake Boxall-Legge
You can probably take that timing order with a few bags of salt - FP2 will be our clearest indication of how it all stacks up this weekend. It'll be a lot cooler, and we'll have our 20 usual drivers in the seats - so, we'll see you then! Thanks for joining us.
FP1 complete
The session is now over - Lando Norris top of the pile with a 1m33.204s, 0.238s clear of Gasly. Hamilton is third, from Albon, Ocon, Hulkenberg, Doohan, Lawson, Tsunoda, and Piastri.
Browning goes up to 13th - definitely rookiesville in that lower half of the table. Albon reports he's lost power, but it sounds fine at the minute - he's doing some flow-vis testing around the front wing.
Drugovich gets his turn on the C3s and posts a lap good enough for P13, just under a tenth shy of Stroll. Beganovic then moves up to 12th to move both Astons down a position.
Just under 10 minutes to go - the rookies might be about to get their shot with laps on the soft tyres. Browning's yet to set a representative time, having done largely aero testing for Williams so far.
Rookie watch:
13. Hirakawa, 14. Vesti, 15. Iwasa, 17. Drugovich, 19. Beganovic, 20. Browning
Norris does a 1m33.204s on his turn with the soft tyres, and goes fastest. Albon was set to finish a run on softs too, but backs off and pits.
Williams duo Albon and Browning have been noted for an incident - Browning seemed to be coming around for a lap, and got chopped off by Albon at Turn 13. "That was close," said Drugovich, who was a witness to the near-incident.
Ocon now goes top with a 1m34.184s, also on softs, although Albon puts together a 1m33.928s. Gasly then finds a 1m33.442s, so the times are rapidly coming down.
Mercedes is having an issue taking the gearbox away from Antonelli's car, as the Italian was benched with an apparent water pressure issue. Something's definitely stuck, someone get the WD-40?
Piastri loses a bunch of time in the final corner after going wide, and thus flashes past the line a quarter of a second away from Hulkenberg with his first run on softs.
Hulkenberg now vaults to the top on softs, 0.3s faster than Bortoleto's time. The German held onto a lock-up at Turn 10 and got the car turned in - expect to see more front locking there.
Bortoleto goes quickest on a set of softs with a 1m34.628s, despite going slightly wide at the final corner. In the meantime, Tsunoda does the usual "post-move" pit-lane drive-by after missing his pitbox. "We're a bit further up," his engineer tells him.
Albon goes fastest with a 1m35.180s, 0.069s clear of Norris. We're about 2.5s slower than FP1's fastest times from last year.
Top 10 after 20 minutes
1. Norris, 2. Albon, 3. Gasly, 4. Piastri, 5. Hulkenberg, 6. Ocon, 7. Tsunoda, 8. Hamilton, 9. Doohan, 10. Stroll.
Hamilton is asked if he wants another push lap, but he declines as the car apparently feels 'horrendous'. So that's a resounding no, then...
Albon improves to get within a tenth of Norris' line-leading time. Piastri moves up to third, almost half a second off his team-mate.
After the opening 15 minutes, all except Browning have a time on the board. The Briton - the winner of the 2022 Autosport BRDC Award - is back out on medium tyres.
"How is the balance?" "Shocking". That's Liam Lawson's radio, somewhat to the point. Nobody's really loving the weather...
Vesti's clearly a fan of security, as he's locked up multiple times in his opening runs. Hamilton, meanwhile, feels the balance is off - but reckons it's just the tyres. That would tally, given the track is scorching hot.
Antonelli makes it back to the pits after trundling around the circuit slowly. Meanwhile, Norris improves and posts a 1m35.249s - going 0.5s faster than Albon as the Thai driver improved slightly.
Norris posts a 1m35.674s to go fastest, as Ocon reports his car is pulling to one side on the straights. Might need a quick tinker with the steering - although Antonelli reports he's got no power, and that might take a little longer to sort if he can't do it with his steering wheel settings.
Hirakawa kicks us off with a 1m38.355s on mediums, although Ocon beats that to get into the 1m36s. Expect the times to keep dropping - as Vesti goes too deep into Turn 1 and goes marginally wide.
Bahrain FP1 begins
Iwasa and Browning are indeed first to hit the road, followed by Ryo Hirakawa, Esteban Ocon, and Gabriel Bortoleto.
There's a bit of a breeze to the south east too, so it'll be a little bit of tailwind heading into Turn 4. We've got some eager rookies also waiting to take to the circuit - Iwasa and Browning at the front of the pack.
10 minutes to go until FP1 gets under way. 35C in Bahrain, so it's well hot. Might be too hot.
In big news, F1 has announced a deal with Barilla to become its Official Pasta Partner. It sounds a bit fusilli, but we imagine they're paying a pretty penne.
Six rookies in Bahrain FP1
There's a handful of different faces taking part in this session; it's a bit less of a track time loss for the regular drivers, as FP1 is in unrepresentative conditions for qualifying and race.
Mercedes - Frederik Vesti (Russell's car)
Red Bull - Ayumu Iwasa (Verstappen's car)
Ferrari - Dino Beganovic (Leclerc's car)
Williams - Luke Browning (Sainz's car)
Aston Martin - Felipe Drugovich (Alonso's car)
Haas - Ryo Hirakawa (Bearman's car)
Hello everybody, and welcome to our live coverage of the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend! We're about to get rolling with our updates for FP1.
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