Kimi Raikkonen’s first laps in the Ferrari were enough to vault him to the top of the timesheets and the Finn would not be dislodged in the opening 90 minute practice session of the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend.
Felipe Massa underlined the pace of the F2007 package as he too vaulted up the order to second fastest after sitting out the first half of the session. Raikkonen set a best lap of 1:33.162s half a second clear of Massa, while the McLaren Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso proved closely matched - but a second off the ultimate pace in third and fourth positions.
While it was pretty much as expected at the very front, Toyota showed well in this session with Jarno Trulli leading the way early on before being bumped down to fifth position as the session progressed. However, the 1.7s gap to Raikkonen shows how much of an advantage the Ferrari team have over the upper mid-field runners.
Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica were sixth and seventh fastest for BMW Sauber while Tonio Liuzzi banged in a fast lap right at the end of the session to move from 18th to eighth in his Toro Rosso Ferrari. Nico Rosberg and Alex Wurz, who suffered a spin late in the session, rounded out the top ten for Williams Toyota.
Honda will be mildly encouraged to Jenson Button record the 11th fastest time in the troublesome FA107. Team-mate Rubens Barrichello meanwhile languished down in 17th position.
Over at Renault and there seems to be no magic answer to their relative decline this year as Heikki Kovalainen was just 12th fastest with team-mate Fisichella behind the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher in 14th position. Scott Speed led team-mate Liuzzi up until the final minute of practice and was 15th fastest ahead of Takuma Sato, Barrichello and Anthony Davidson.
Red Bull Renault struggled for pace with Mark Webber and David Coulthard just 19th and 20th… Adrian Sutil got within a second of the Red Bull duo in his Spyker Ferrari while Christijan Albers was over a second off his team-mate at the back of the pack.
It is early days in Bahrain, but the F2007 looks like the package to have this weekend…
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