Red Bull hides potential, Hamilton wins second practice in Bahrain. What did we learn from Thursday’s F1 action?

The new F1 season kicked off at 12:30 p.m. on Thursday. As the drivers set off for their first practice session at the Bahrain circuit. The packed programme then continued with a second practice session in the afternoon, so what did Thursday’s action offer?

Right from the start, we must note that both the Bahrain Grand Prix and the following Saudi Grand Prix will be held on Saturday. F1 has therefore moved the first free practice sessions to Thursday, instead of the traditional Friday date.

The final third practice session and qualifying are scheduled for Friday. While unusually the first race of the season will start on Saturday. And why these relatively big changes? Because Ramadan begins on Sunday 10 March in countries with the Islamic religion, the Queen of Motorsport has adapted the start of the Saudi Grand Prix to Saturday.

And since the FIA regulations clearly state that there must be a minimum of a week’s break between each grand prix, it has also moved the start of this season’s opening race in Bahrain to Saturday.

The first one didn’t show much, of course. So we’ll have to wait a little longer for answers to the many questions that have been raised. Especially after the recent official tests.

How did the first F1 practice sessions in Bahrain go?

We can already see the relevance that the first practice session offers by looking at the final ranking of the elite ten. With a time of 1:32.869, Daniel Ricciardo dominated FP1 in the RB, with Lando Norris just 32 thousandths of a second behind. He was followed by Piastri, Cunoda, Alonso, Verstappen, Russell, Leclerc, Hamilton and Bottas.

It should be noted, all the drivers listed in the elite ten were within half a second. With a few exceptions, such as the McLaren drivers, the majority of the field started the first practice session on a medium set of tyres.

But it was the afternoon’s second practice session that provided the most clues as far as relevance was concerned. It was held in Bahrain in the dark. And it is in exactly those conditions, and in relatively cold weather, that the Grand Prix itself will be run.

So if the teams wanted to test different alternatives for qualifying and the race, the second practice was the most suitable option. The big surprise was the final position of Max Verstappen. Although looking at the times over the long distance he was faster by an average of six tenths of a second.

Red Bull hides potential

So it’s safe to say that Red Bull is almost certainly hiding a huge amount of potential. And they have so far been reluctant to show it in lap times. Norris’ placing is also strange, as he set virtually no representative time in FP2 and finished last.

In contrast, his teammate, Australian Piastri, finished fifth. Both put on the fastest set of tyres during the second practice session, as did the entire starting field. However, Lewis Hamilton dominated the second free practice session ahead of George Russell. The full FP2 standings can be found in the attached post below.

Source: F1 TV, X