Sutil tops big boys

Sutil: set the early pace

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• Adrian Sutil

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Adrian Sutil claimed the first honours of the new season as the Force India driver topped the timesheets in Bahrain's Practice One, edging out Fernando Alonso.

Despite the hype surrounding the new season with its new regulations, new teams and returning drivers, the opening session in Bahrain failed to impress.

Long distance heavy-fuelled runs were the order of the morning with Ferrari and McLaren appearing to have the advantage over their rivals, at least until Force India came into play.

Sutil moved to the top with a 1:56.583 beating Alonso and Renault's Robert Kubica while the two McLaren drivers were fourth and fifth ahead of Felipe Massa.

Behind the top six, Vitantonio Liuzzi was at least in close attendance to team-mate Sutil as he finished 0.6secs down.

Completing the top 10 was an intriguing trio as Red Bull's Mark Webber sandwiched the Mercedes duo of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher, with the former pipping the seven-times world champion.

It was 41-year-old Schumacher's first official practice session for three and a half years on his comeback outing, and he finished a full second behind Sutil, and 0.4secs adrift of Rosberg.

Last year's championship runner-up Sebastian Vettel was 13th behind the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari and Nico Hulkenberg on his debut for Williams, with their team-mates Sebastien Buemi and veteran Rubens Barrichello 14th and 15th.

Behind Petrov came the Sauber duo of Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi, followed by Timo Glock as Virgin Racing made its first foray into a grand prix weekend.

The German edged out the Lotus pairing of Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli, but in a clear indicator of how far the newcomers are off the pace at this early stage in the season, all three were seven seconds behind Sutil.

Lucas di Grassi completed just two installation laps in the other Virgin, whilst it was no surprise to see Hispania Racing suffer a series of problems as they took their first tentative steps into F1.

Without a single test kilometre behind them following a troubled winter, Bruno Senna managed just three installation laps, the first of those not until 21 minutes from the end of the session.

As for team-mate Karun Chandhok, he frustratingly sat on the sidelines for the entire run due to a hydraulics issue.

Times - First Practice

1. Sutil - Force India-Mercedes 1:56.583 18 laps
2. Alonso - Ferrari 1:56.766 + 0.183 18 laps
3. Kubica - Renault 1:57.041 + 0.458 19 laps
4. Massa - Ferrari 1:57.055 + 0.472 19 laps
5. Button - McLaren-Mercedes 1:57.068 + 0.485 19 laps
6. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:57.163 + 0.580 19 laps
7. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:57.194 + 0.611 19 laps
8. Rosberg Mercedes GP 1:57.199 + 0.616 15 laps
9. Webber Red Bull Racing 1:57.255 + 0.672 17 laps
10. Schumacher Mercedes GP 1:57.662 + 1.079 16 laps
11. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:57.722 + 1.139 18 laps
12. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:57.894 + 1.311 20 laps
13. Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:57.943 + 1.360 17 laps
14. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:58.399 + 1.816 13 laps
15. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:58.782 + 2.199 11 laps
16. Petrov Renault 1:58.880 + 2.297 13 laps
17. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 2:00.250 + 3.667 18 laps
18. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 2:01.388 + 4.805 11 laps
19. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 2:03.680 + 7.097 8 laps
20. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 2:03.848 + 7.265 21 laps
21. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 2:03.970 + 7.387 15 laps
22. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 2 laps
23. Senna HRT-Cosworth 3 laps
24. Chandhok HRT-Cosworth