The 2024 season is finally underway with the first day of running, complete after the two practice sessions in Bahrain. With Daniel Ricciardo topping the afternoon session with the fastest lap time of 1 minute 32.869 seconds, all eyes were on the second session, which was more representative in terms of the track conditions for qualifying and the race on Saturday. The session concluded with the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell occupying the two top spots while the defending triple world champion was only in 6th. However, the excitement didn’t last long as Max Verstappen explained why the Red Bull wasn’t on the top of the timing sheet.

As the session started, Lewis Hamilton wasted no time in asserting his dominance, setting the fastest time of the day at 1 minute 30.374 seconds. George Russell followed closely in second place, trailing Hamilton by a mere 0.206 seconds. Fernando Alonso covered the third spot, with 0.286 seconds behind the leader. On the other hand, Max Verstappen had a relatively subdued session, finishing with a time 0.477 seconds slower than his arch-rival.

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The teams made strategic decisions regarding tire usage in the afternoon, with most opting to preserve the softer compound for the cooler temperatures of FP2, allowing them to run early qualifying simulations under the floodlights. However, many, including the commentators, were left scratching their heads when Verstappen found himself almost half a second adrift of the leader, Lewis Hamilton, even during his qualifying simulation with low fuel loads.

Later on, after the session, Formula 1 technical expert Sam Collins explained that the Red Bulls were not running their engines full tilt. In the debrief, Collins said, “Honda Engineers did not let Red Bull drivers run on full power.“ The Dutchman also suggested the same thing a while later. “Many around us seem to have turned up the engine, we go about our runs our own way,“ said the triple world champion.

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Apart from Verstappen, other drivers also put in the hard laps during the practice. Here is a look at how they fared.

How did the other drivers perform during practice?

After the top 3, Carlos Sainz stood in 4th and Oscar Piastri put his McLaren in 5th. Other notable performances included Nico Hülkenberg, Lance Stroll, Charles Leclerc, and Sergio Perez, who completed the top 10 positions. Further down the grid, Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant put their Williams in 11th and 13th places, with Daniel Ricciardo sandwiched between them in 12th.

Kevin Magnussen led the Haas team in 14th place, while Yuki Tsunoda followed closely behind in 15th. The Alpine of Pierre Gasly secured the 16th spot, with Valtteri Bottas under investigation for a pit lane infringement and finishing in 17th. Esteban Ocon and Zhou Guanyu occupied the 18th and 19th positions, while Lando Norris found himself at the bottom of the timesheets after abandoning his flying lap earlier due to a problem with his steering wheel.

With that said and done, we are looking forward to the first qualifying session of the season tomorrow because that will give us the true pecking order for the 2024 season.

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What are your predictions for qualifying tomorrow? Who will take pole position for the race on Saturday? Leave your predictions in the comments down below.