Bahrain GP: Alonso tops final practice

Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso sent out a signal to the rest of the Formula One field this morning in Bahrain, that with a Ferrari at his disposal he aims to make life tough for the rest of the competitors this year. Alonso ran the fastest lap of the weekend so far, a 1m54.099s, in the final practice session before qualifying.

The top seven drivers were within one second of each other. Nico Rosberg was second quickest in his Mercedes, 0.269 seconds behind Alonso and he set the fastest first and second sector times.

Rosberg was followed by Mark Webber's Red Bull (0.401s), Michael Schumacher (0.434s) in the other Mercedes and Sebastian Vettel (0.547s) in his Red Bull. Felipe Massa (0.640s) in the Ferrari was sixth fastest, but he made a mistake on his final run and ran wide at turn 22.

Next up came Jenson Button (0.901s) in the McLaren, Robert Kubica (1.232s) in the Renault, Vitantonio Liuzzi (1.333s) in the Force India, and Nico Hulkenberg (1.362s) in the Williams rounding out the top 10.

Lewis Hamilton was not able to make a qualifying simulation, as the team was fixing a problem with his front left brake duct at the end of the session.

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