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GPUpdate
Rosberg finishes Bahrain Friday on top
12 March 2010Nico Rosberg and the Mercedes-Benz team set the fastest lap in Bahrain on Friday as the first day of running began for the 2010 season. It was a strong start to the campaign for Mercedes, which saw the two McLaren cars join its works team in the top four. Bruno Senna's session came to a dramatic end, however, when the Hispania stopped due to a suspected loss of a wheel nut.
With air temperatures of 34°C (93°C) and the track baking at more than 40°C (104°F and up), the conditions witnessed in Bahrain could not have been more different to those of testing in Spain last month. Adrian Sutil and Force India were the first to lead a session in 2010, doing so earlier in the morning, although Rosberg achieved the day's best lap time of 1:55.409 as he led the way from Champions Hamilton, Schumacher and Button in the afternoon.
Sebastian Vettel was unhappy with the performance of his Red Bull-Renault, despite the car handling better on the Super Soft tyres which are the softest available and are therefore marked with a green sidewall. The other Bridgestone compound on offer this weekend is Medium and both must be used over the course of Sunday's Grand Prix.
With Vettel a second off the pace, a drive shaft problem for team-mate Mark Webber ensured that the Australian was rooted to the pits after completing a total of 12 laps, finishing the day 17th and five seconds off the leading pace. The Force India and Renault cars of Liuzzi and Kubica completed the most laps of the day, each with 29 to their name.
Nico Hülkenberg was the leading rookie as the GP2 Champion made the top five for Williams, with former GP2 rival Vitaly Petrov eighth for Renault - despite his headrest coming lose early in the session - as he makes history by being F1's first Russian driver. Other new boys Lucas di Grassi, Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok finished 21st, 22nd and 24th respectively as Hispania failed to run the Indian newcomer due to gearbox problems.
There was a scary end to the session for Senna, nephew of late 3-time World Champion Ayrton, whose car is suspected to have lost a right-rear wheel nut approaching Turn 1 shortly after the clock stopped; the Brazilian parked his Hispania safely on the tarmac run-off area after finishing the day eleven and a half seconds off the leading pace.
Jaime Alguersuari had the largest moment of the session and a lucky escape when, having lost his Toro Rosso over a kerb in the infield section, the Spaniard narrowly missed the Armco barrier when spinning backwards across the circuit.
The third and final practice session of the season-opening weekend commences at 11am local time on Saturday morning (GMT +3) and can again be followed live on GPUpdate.net
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