By Sam Cooper
April 5 2008

The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes formula one team have completed the first practice session for this weekends Bahrain Grand Prix. Race drivers Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen set 4th and 5th fastest lap times, behind the two Ferraris and the Williams of Nico Rosberg. The Ferraris were expected to be fastest at Bahrain, due to their lightning pace during the winter testing here.

Brazilian Felipe Massa set the pace during the first ninety minute session, setting a best lap time of 1:32.233, ahead of his world champion team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, who finished just a tenth behind the Bahrain specialist. Massa will need to translate this practice pace into the race, as he has yet to finish a race this season.

The award of best of the rest went to Williams driver Nico Rosberg, who in the dying minutes of the session, set the third fastest time, just two tenths of a second off the pace of Felipe Massa. The Williams team look very strong this weekend, Kazuki Nakajima in the sister car, ended the day in 6th place, proving that Williams will likely come out of the Kingdom of Bahrain with a handful of points.

British superstar, Lewis Hamilton ended the session in 4th place, while his team-mate, Heikki Kovalainen trailed him in 5th. Hamilton opted to run on one set of tyres, presumably to test out tyre degradation he flat spotted a tyre under braking, the McLaren team measured the vibrations (just like in the European Grand Prix in 2005, where Kimi Raikkonen spun out of the lead with one lap to go.

BMW don’t appear to be as strong as they were a fortnight ago in Malaysia, Robert Kubica could only manage 7th fastest in the F1.08, while his team-mate, Nick Heidfeld, could only manage 14th.

Times are shown below.