Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRace weekend

LIVE: Bahrain Grand Prix FP2

Follow live coverage of the second practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix with F1i on our updated live page.

Mercedes was ominously quick throughout the first session on Friday, with Nico Rosberg half a second clear of Lewis Hamilton at the top of the times and over 1.8s faster than Kimi Raikkonen in third place.

Ferrari's true pace may have been masked slightly with Rosberg's best time coming on the soft tyre and Sebastian Vettel only running the mediums, suggesting Vettel was testing upgrades using a stable baseline in conditions which tend to be unrepresentative during the opening session. With the race taking place after sunset, only FP2 and qualifying take place at the same time.

Stoffel Vandoorne's debut F1 weekend got off to a steady start, with the Belgian driver within a second of Jenson Button in FP1 despite it being his first time in the 2016 McLaren. However, both drivers were outside the top ten as Red Bull and Toro Rosso started the race weekend strongly, while Haas also impressed with Romain Grosjean in P9.

F1i's live page has been updated to bring you a better user experience, while the coverage will bring you all the latest information about what is happening on track as well as news and features from the paddock.

REPORT: Rosberg fastest as Mercedes sets blistering pace

Romain Grosjean's exclusive F1i column - Bahrain

RACE PREVIEW: Bahrain Grand Prix

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.