McLaren with a chance for a podium? (Bahrain GP FP1 Report)

The first practice session of the season is over and done with, and what a sight it was to see the F1 circus in full swing yet again.

It was Max Verstappen who topped the timesheets in the desert. Three tenths behind the dutchman was the Flying Finn, Valtteri Bottas, luckily for him, Mercedes seemed to have fixed the problems they had in Pre-season Testing. The newly knighted Sir Lewis Hamilton finished the one-hour session in fourth.

The biggest surprise of the day so far was McLaren, more precisely, Lando Norris who finished in third ahead of Hamilton and Perez. On the other hand, Ricciardo was still trying to cope with his new MCL35M, only managing to finish in ninth, half a second behind Norris.

Another team that surprised us was Alfa Romeo. Antonio Giovannazzi just sneaked into the Top 10 while his more experienced teammate Kimi Räikkönen put his Alfa up into eleventh position. A good start for the swiss team ahead of the rest of the season.

A team that had a lot of high expectations going into the season was the Alpine F1 Team. But their performance in the first free practice session did not reflect on it. Their French driver Esteban Ocon only set the fifteenth fastest time of the session while the returning two-time world champion Fernando Alonso finished behind him in sixteenth.

Aston Martin was also not living up to their expectations; especially after their very extravagant car launch. The new man at the team Sebastian Vettel finished in twelfth, 1.7 seconds away from Verstappen. While Lance Stroll was just behind the German driver, less than one tenth separating the two of them.

With FP1 concluded we are now onto FP2 which will be under the cold night sky of the Bahraini desert.

FP2 - 15:00 GMT