Free Practice 3, Alonso and Ferrari take the honours

The last free practice session has finished and Fernando Alonso underlined the pace of the Ferrari by topping the times in the last free practice session for the Bahrain GP, he beat Nico Rosberg into second place in the Mercedes.
Red Bull finally move to the sharp end of the times taking 3rd and 5th places and pushing the McLarens down to 7th and 12th. The Mercedes still look strong with Rosberg their fastest driver. The Sauber still seems to be disappointing with only managing 13th and 17th after the pace that they showed in pre-season testing.
Karun Chandhok still didn’t get the HRT car out of the garage, hopefully he’ll be able to complete a lap in qualifying so that he can compete in the race otherwise it makes a bit of a mockery of the team getting to the race.
Times in full:
1. Alonso Ferrari 1:54.099
2. Rosberg Mercedes 1:54.368
3. Webber Red [...]

Practice 2 in Bahrain and Nico Rosberg takes the top spot for Mercedes

With the second practice session over Nico Rosberg sits at the top of the times for Mercedes beating Michael Schumacher for the second session. McLaren and Mercedes took the top spots for the session to show that they are the teams to beat.

There was also some good times for Nico Hulkenberg who hauled himself up to 6th place in the times. The Ferrari’s seemed to be concentrating on long runs and so don’t really feature in the times but don’t let that fool you – they are faster than that.
It seems that tyre wear is going to play a big part in Sunday’s GP with some teams treating their tyres nicely and some chewing through them extremely fast. The Red Bull seems to be hard on it’s tyres whereas the McLaren is able to look after them better. If this is the case it will play into the hands of [...]

Practice 1 in Bahrain, Adrian Sutil and Force India top the times

The first practice is now over and we have our first taste of F1 for 2010 and it is Force India with Adrian Sutil that take the top spot with Alonso and Ferrari second. Fourth spot also went to Ferrari to reinforce the general view that their car is fast.

Other stars were Kubica to haul the Renault up to third spot when it hasn’t looked that fast throughout testing. Jenson Button managed to get in front of Hamilton in the first session in their battle, it doesn’t mean that much but every little victory will help. Rosberg also finished ahead of Schumacher who was unhappy with the car setup throughout the session, how many times in the past have we seen Schumacher struggle all weekend to then take the Victory on Sunday though?
Liuzzi finished seventh to show that the Force India does indeed have pace but the Saubers somewhat disappointingly [...]

Driver movements for 2010, the ongoing merry-go-round

2010 sees the most changed grid in a long while and whereas the new teams and drivers receive a lot of press there are also a good few drivers who’ve changed teams over the winter. Some of them for the better and some for worse.

Jenson Button – Brawn to McLaren
Rubens Barrichello – Brawn to Williams
Nico Rosberg – Williams to Mercedes
Fernando Alonso – Renault to Ferrari
Timo Glock – Toyota to Virgin
Jarno Trulli – Toyota to Lotus
Heikki Kovalainen – McLaren to Lotus
Robert Kubica – BMW Sauber to Renault

Some of the moves were forced such as Timo Glock, Jarno Trulli and to some extent Robert Kubica because of the demise of the team though in Kubica’s case Sauber re-emerged later on. Glocks move sees him end up at Virgin and Trulli’s at Lotus – two of the new teams – only time will tell whether these moves make sense and a lot of [...]