Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton ended the opening free practice session of the Bahrain Grand Prix down in tenth position as he worked through his normal program. The overly hot conditions in the morning session caused some concern, but the triple world champion was happy with the work completed.
In the second session, when the track had had a chance to cool off, Lewis finished fifth overall and is looking forward to a good battle with his rivals in Saturday's all important qualifying hour…
He ran the Medium and Soft compound tyre in FP1, the Soft and SuperSoft in FP2.
“A pretty normal Friday, really,” he said. “It was incredibly hot early on, with some of the very toughest conditions - both physically and in terms of working with the tyres. We got through that and then it was much cooler in the afternoon, giving us a much better representation of what qualifying and the race will be like. I was able to get a much better understanding of where the car is in FP2."
"It was very close, with Ferrari fastest. In race trim they seem a couple of tenths quicker, so I'm expecting a great battle tomorrow and then again on Sunday. We'll work as hard as we can to try to close that gap. I have a great group of fans here and I tried to wave to them every time I went out. Their smiles really make a big difference.”
