Ferrari Shows Promise While Pierre Gasly Sets the Benchmark at Bahrain GP FP1 Session

The F1 season is back! The sport hosted the first practice session of the season at the Sakhir International Circuit for the Bahrain Grand Prix. Everyone was eagerly waiting to see if the performances that they saw in the Bahrain Pre-season tests resonated in the Free Practice sessions.

There were many surprises as Haas driver Kevin Magnussen and Aston Martin driver Nico Hulkenberg took the tracks in a competitive session for the first time since the 2020 season. Max Verstappen set the pace out of blocks as he went P1 on a time 1:34:742 ahead of Alpine driver Fernando Alonso by four-tenths, although the Spanish driver used the softest compound of tires.

Mercedes still could not find a proper solution to their porpoising, as their W13 was bouncing throughout the straights. Hamilton looked way behind Verstappen as he finished P7. His teammate, George Russell was similarly riddled with the issue of porpoising as he finished P4.

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Pierre Gasly tops the first FP1 of the 2022 F1 season

AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly showed his true pace and impressed everyone as went P1 at the end of the session. The Frenchman has a time of 1:34:193, almost four-tenths ahead of the Ferarri drivers.

But in the main surprise, the Ferrari looked twitchy in the hands of Charles Leclerc as he spun around at Turn 11 and 12. Fortunately, there was no damage to his SF-75, which allowed him to finish P2 on the medium tires with Sainz finishing P3.

The Alpine pair surprised everyone with their performance as they were running for most of the session at the front of the grid, but finished P8 and P12, with Alonso leading Ocon. But both of the drivers used the softer tires to put their fastest times on the board. But in an interesting sight that caused the session to stop, Ocon lost a lot of bodywork from his car.

McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo finished P16 and P17, respectively. Max Verstappen did not do any soft tires runs and finished P5 with Perez in P10.

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Alfa Romeo suffered technical issues in the FP1, as Valtteri Bottas missed most of the session. His car misfired in the early stages of the session and only made it on track in the last 10 minutes of Free Practice 1, but the problem was not solved and he could set a time. On the other hand, his teammate Guanyu Zhou finished, P11 in the dying minutes on the soft tires.