Ricciardo fastest for RB in windy start to practice in Bahrain · RaceFans

Daniel Ricciardo set the quickest time for RB in the opening practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix on soft compound tyres.

However the majority of the 20 drivers in the field chose only to use the medium tyres over the opening hour of running for the season.

Ricciardo’s 1’32.869 was the fastest time of the session, ahead of the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who were both less than a quarter of a second slower, with Yuki Tsunoda fourth in the second RB. All of the top four set their best times on the soft tyres.

The first session in the longest Formula 1 season in history began with picture-perfect conditions with the sun shining and an ambient temperature of just under 20C. However, the high winds from last week’s pre-season test appeared returned: Piastri was warned by his McLaren team to expect a 30kph tailwind pushing him down the back straight out of turn 10.

Nico Hulkenberg was the first car out on track as the 2024 season officially began, setting the first official lap time of the year with a 1’37.931. World champion Max Verstappen set the early standard by posting a 1’33.749 as all 20 drivers focused on runs on the medium compound early on in the session. However, Verstappen was unhappy with the gearshifts on his new RB20 and made sure his team knew about it.

It was a very uneventful start to the 2024 season, with no drivers suffering any major problems with their new cars. There was only one brief yellow flag all session, which appeared to be triggered when Yuki Tsunoda ran wide at the exit of turn 11 in the final ten minutes.

Only six drivers opted to run the softs in the hour: both RBs, both McLarens and the Sauber drivers Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu. Fernando Alonso was fastest on the mediums in fifth, ahead of Verstappen in sixth, George Russell in seventh, Charles Leclerc in eighth, Lewis Hamilton ninth and Valtteri Bottas completing the top ten.

At the lower end of the times, the Haas drivers Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg sat at the bottom in 19th and 20th, respectively, over two seconds off the next-slowest cars. In testing the team largely focused on long runs, which was its biggest weakness last year. Alpine drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly were also low down the order in 17th and 18th position.

Hulkenberg completed the most laps of any driver with 27, Zhou the fewest with 16 after reporting a braking problem early on. Williams topped the speed trap rankings with Logan Sargeant hitting 319kph,…