Lando Norris topped the timesheets during the opening practice session of the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend, the McLaren driver going fastest from Pierre Gasly and Lewis Hamilton in an hour that featured appearances from six rookies.
Just days after racing in cool conditions at Japan’s Suzuka Circuit, the teams and drivers returned to action amid hot and sunny weather at Sakhir for Friday’s Free Practice 1. Several of the current grid, however, would not be getting behind the wheel, having instead handed their cars over to a young driver as part of the rule stipulating that teams must run rookies in four FP1 sessions during the season.
READ MORE: The six rookie drivers set to take part in FP1 at the Bahrain Grand Prix
Ayumu Iwasa, Dino Beganovic, Fred Vesti, Felipe Drugovich, Ryo Hirakawa and Luke Browning were set to turn out for Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Haas and Williams respectively, taking the place of Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Fernando Alonso, Ollie Bearman and Carlos Sainz.
The new faces seemed keen to get going, with Iwasa leading the pack out from Browning and Hirakawa when the green light appeared at 1430 local time. There was early trouble, meanwhile, for the more familiar name of Kimi Antonelli, the Mercedes driver reporting “no power” before slowly returning to the pits less than 10 minutes into the session.
