Vettel remains fastest in Bahrain second practice
Sebastian Vettel was once again fastest for Ferrari during second practice in Bahrain.
Taking place under the lights, second practice would be a more representative session for qualifying and the race, with the temperatures falling from the 40 degree highs earlier in the day.
Initially, everyone went out on the soft tyre which saw Vettel’s team-mate Kimi Raikkonen lead the times from Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. Lewis Hamilton made a mistake in Turn 4, aborting the first lap, compromising him a second attempt masking his true pace.
As the first to put on the super-soft tyre, Vettel’s 1m31.3s benchmark remained for the rest of the session, although he was closely challenged by Mercedes’ Bottas and Red Bull’s Ricciardo. Both were less than a tenth of a second behind, with Red Bull also keeping pace on the long runs.
Vettel didn’t have a completely trouble free session, the car switching off at the end of the lap, just making it into the pitlane. Ferrari fixed the electrical issue and returned onto the circuit with 25 minutes remaining.
Both Raikkonen and Hamilton had several attempts on the supersoft tyre, with the Mercedes driver badly blocked by Nico Hulkenberg. They would end up fourth and fifth respectively at the end of the session.
Outside the top five, an under review Nico Hulkenberg performed well for Renault, just half a second behind the leading pace. He was also fast on the soft tyres in the early part of the session.
Felipe Massa was seventh, Max Verstappen eighth, while some distance behind Romain Grosjean and Daniil Kvyat rounded out the top 10. Verstappen lost a chunk of the session as the team changed his floor, damaged after running over Bottas’ t-wing.
Just outside the top 10, Kevin Magnussen was just a couple of tenths behind Kvyat and with Esteban Ocon in 12th, clear of his more experienced team-mate.
Carlos Sainz missed most of the session after smoke poured from the cockpit just 15 minutes in and ended the day in 18th.
Stoffel Vandoorne after his failure earlier had an engine change, heading out onto the circuit 40 minutes into the session. It didn’t last long for the McLaren though as another engine problem stopped his session early.