Rosberg stays on top in FP2 as Mercedes 1-2 parade continues

Nico Rosberg maintains the edge on teammate Lewis Hamilton. As AR1 predicted before the season started, Mercedes has decided it's Rosberg's turn to win the title.

Nico Rosberg once again led a Mercedes AMG Petronas 1-2 in Free Practice 2 today in Bahrain. Jenson Button surprised placing a full second behind World Champion Lewis Hamilton. Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen rounded out the top-five.

At the back end of the field, it was a good session for the Manor team as Pascal Wehrlein placed 19th ahead of both Saubers.

Nico Rosberg

I couldn’t wait to get back in the car after a great weekend in Melbourne and I felt really good out there. It’s been an encouraging first day for the team. We were very quick on one lap and also on the longer runs, so I’m really looking forward to qualifying and the race. I like this track very much. The atmosphere is great and it looks really spectacular driving under the lights in the evening. It should be an exciting weekend!

Lewis Hamilton

That was a good Friday overall. The car is performing really well here. There were no surprises or issues to report throughout both practice sessions, which is always a good sign. Understanding the tyres has been key to our work today as they’ll be a big factor this weekend. There’s some work to do tonight in terms of finding a few improvements from the car and also my driving style. I’m looking forward to getting back out there and making some more progress tomorrow.

Valtteri Bottas
We managed to complete our running as planned with no issues at all so it’s been a good day. The car felt better in the evening practice session with the lower temperatures and less wind, which is good as we need the car to be at its best at the same time of day for qualifying and the race. We can still improve, but what was encouraging was the consistency we showed in long runs on the medium tyre.

Felipe Massa
It was a normal Friday for us really. We were focusing on trying to understand the balance of the car, how it performs on different tyres, and we completed some good long runs at the end. We have collected a lot of information today and now we’ll be trying to understand it to make improvements for tomorrow.

Full times below…

Brian C. reporting for AR1