The tenth edition of the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend started off with a one-two for Ferrari.
The Brazilian finished just over seven hundredths of a second ahead of team-mate Fernando Alonso, himself a three-time winner of this race.
After waiting an hour to join the action, Massa, who won here in 2007 and 2008, set his time of 1:34.487 almost as soon as he emerged from the Ferrari garage. The time was good enough to eclipse Alonso, who had set his best lap of 1:34.564 a few moments earlier, to second position. Third place went to Mercedes Nico Rosberg, With Sebastian Vettel fourth for Red Bull Racing.
Fifth place went to Paul Di Resta, the Force India driver finishing just over fourth tenths adrift of Massas benchmark. The Scot was backed up by Jenson Button, Mark Webber, Adrian Sutil, Kimi Raikkonen and in tenth place, Romain Grosjean.
With the track dusty and lacking grip, most of the expected front-runners held station in their garages for the first half of the session, a situation that gave control of proceedings to reserve drivers and those with development work to do. That meant 22 laps for early pacesetter Button and 23 tours for team-mate Sergio Perez as McLaren seek improvements.
The session also saw Heikki Kovalainen back at the wheel of a Caterham. The Finn, who has been drafted in by the team as a reserve driver alongside American Alexander Rossi, completed 20 laps at the wheel of the teams CT03.
1. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m34.487s 11 laps2. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m34.564s + 0.077s 193. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m34.621s + 0.134s 224. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m34.790s + 0.303s 205. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m34.949s + 0.462s 176. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m35.069s + 0.582s 227. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m35.101s + 0.614s 198. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m35.119s + 0.632s 199. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m35.345s + 0.858s 1710. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m35.611s + 1.124s 1411. Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes 1m35.640s + 1.153s 2312. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1m35.783s + 1.296s 1613. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m35.792s + 1.305s 1614. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m36.014s + 1.527s 1915. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m36.485s + 1.998s 2016. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m36.498s + 2.011s 1717. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1m36.755s + 2.268s 2018. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m37.214s + 2.727s 2119. Charles Pic Caterham-Renault 1m37.850s + 3.363s 2020. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 1m38.401s + 3.914s 2021. Max Chilton Marussia-Cosworth 1m39.445s + 4.958s 1222. Rodolfo Gonzalez Marussia-Cosworth 1m40.215s + 5.728s 7
Click here for the Official Felipe Massa web site - designed and built by Racecar
Click here for the Official Kimi Raikkonen web site - designed and built by Racecar
