Mercedes fastest on Thursday in Bahrain as rivals remain guarded against Red Bull threat
Lewis Hamilton was fastest on Thursday at the Bahrain Grand Prix as Mercedes went 1-2 in the second practice session in Sakhir.
Lewis Hamilton was fastest in practice on Thursday at the Bahrain Grand Prix. (Peter Fox/Formula 1/Getty Images)
In cool and breezy conditions under the setting sun, Hamilton set the fastest lap of 1:30.374 ahead of teammate George Russell, with five different teams making up the next five spots.
With the event slightly earlier for 2024 to accommodate Ramadan, conditions were calm throughout the day before the wind picked up in the afternoon and the temperature dropped below 20° for FP2.
"It was very windy in FP1, and the track was very different to during the test," said Hamilton.
Lewis Hamilton in the Bahrain pit lane on Thursday. (Sebastian Kawka/Mercedes-AMG F1)
"We didn’t know exactly where we would stack up against everyone else, but we had a positive FP2 session."
"The car was feeling good, but we can’t get ahead of ourselves.
"We know there is more to extract, and our long run pace isn’t in the fight with the Red Bulls."
Despite the results, Mercedes was quick to downplay their performance against the 2024 constructors' champions.
"We're certainly not getting carried away, as there is plenty of scope within power unit modes and fuel loads for several cars to find a chunk of time before tomorrow," said Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.
"It's encouraging though that the picture we had last week seems to have improved."
"The long run data also looks close. Verstappen is still comfortably out front, as we saw last week, but behind him it's going to be a tight battle for the remaining podium spots.
"We know we’ve got plenty to fine tune on the balance. It's still early days with the W15, and we're learning how to get lap-time out of it with each run, but it's already feeling very different to the last two years that we have been here."
Reigning world champion Max Verstappen sixth-fastest but confident after spending the Thursday sessions perfecting the race setup.
“The practice sessions today were not perfect but we weren’t too far off," said the Dutchman.
"The long runs were quite decent, and I think we can always do a little better on those laps. There were a few small balance issues that we will work on but I am quite happy with everything with the car overall."
"Today was just about trying to find that sweet spot and getting the perfect balance in the car.
"Performing well in qualifying is important, so we will make sure the car is in good shape ahead of tomorrow.
"I’m not too worried about the gap to P1 and we aren’t looking too much at the others and are just focusing on ourselves at the moment.
"It’s going to be very close in qualifying but we will try and work a bit more and fight for pole tomorrow.”
Max Verstappen prepares for free practice in Bahrain. (Mark Thompson/Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool)
Earlier in the day it was Australian Daniel Ricciardo who topped the first session of the year, a result that teased increased performance from the rebranded Visa CashApp RB team.
"We looked fairly quick in the morning session because we took the soft tyre," said RB racing director Alan Permane.
"We planned to run two sets of the medium and two of the soft compounds today to take one in each session, so we could have a baseline of the car at the end of FP1 to help us with our assessment and changes for FP2."
"We are reasonably happy with where things are at. We’ll look closely at the changes we made, to understand why we were possibly less competitive in FP2.
"Overall, it was still a productive day during which we completed all the testing we had on our programme.”
Fellow Australian Oscar Piastri was third-fastest in FP1 behind teammate Lando Norris.
Piastri was fifth-fastest in FP2, with Ricciardo falling to 12th.
The category has taken the three hardest of the available tyre compounds to the Sakhir circuit, known for its high levels of degradation.
Pirelli tyre analysis from Thursday in Bahrain - click to expand. (Pirelli)
“A very interesting day, because we got our first indications of the hierarchy down the pit lane, even if one has to take into account the usual unknown factors such as how much fuel the cars had on board and how the power unit was used," said Pirelli chief engineer Simone Berra.
"We saw the teams make almost identical choices in terms of tyre usage, with a preference for the C2 in the first session and the C3 in the second, when track conditions were similar to those we can expect for the race, while the two sets of C1 have been saved for the rest of the weekend."
"The long runs in FP2 were almost all done on the C3 and demonstrated that even the softest compound could be competitive over a long stint. As for the C2, we already saw in testing that the difference in performance compared to the C1 is not so big, but the hardest compound guarantees better consistency and is therefore the preferred choice for the race.”
The F1 field returns for a final practice session on Friday afternoon before the sunset qualifying session.
Watch every session of the 2024 Formula One season live in 4K on Kayo Sports.
