Nico Rosberg leads Mercedes one two in first F1 practice in Bahrain

On a run of four consecutive victories, Rosberg picked up where he left off in the Australian Grand Prix to comfortable outpace Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton at Sakhir.

Rosberg's lap of 1m32.292s on Pirelli's soft-tyre compound was half-a-second quicker than reigning champion Hamilton, and 0.277s up on his pole lap from last year.

The latest Mercedes one-two was streets ahead of the rest, with Kimi Raikkonen third in his Ferrari, albeit 1.834s adrift of Rosberg.

Red Bull duo Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat were fourth and fifth quickest, separated by 0.080s, but both just over two seconds down on the leading Mercedes.

In a tightly-bunched midfield, Ricciardo in fourth down to Jenson Button in 14th were covered by one second.

Nico Hulkenberg was 2.3s off the pace in sixth, ahead of the Toro Rosso pair of Carlos Sainz Jr and Max Verstappen just 0.067s apart in seventh and eighth.

Following on from his sixth place in Australia on Haas's F1 debut, Romain Grosjean was ninth quickest for the American team, 2.706s down.

Felipe Massa completed the top 10, just six thousandths of a second adrift of Grosjean, and 0.067s ahead of Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari, albeit with his time set on used medium rubber.

Williams's Valtteri Bottas was 11th on the timesheet, followed by Esteban Gutierrez for Haas, with the Mexican three seconds down.

Gutierrez is running a new chassis this weekend after the one in Australia was cracked when lifted off track by a crane following his accident with Fernando Alonso.

Behind Button in 14th was the first of the Renault drivers in Kevin Magnussen, followed by Sauber's Marcus Ericsson and Manor of Pascal Wehrlein.

Stoffel Vandoorne, deputising this weekend for Alonso who has been ruled out with chest injuries following his crash in Australia, was 18th, and just over four seconds behind Rosberg.

Force India reserve Alfonso Celis Jr, in the first of his seven FP1 outings this year, finished 21st and almost five seconds down, with Manor's Rio Haryanto bringing up the rear for Manor, with the Indonesian 5.420s down.

The session was run in much cooler conditions than normal given the unseasonal weather in the region of late.

With air and track temperatures of 22 and 31 degrees respectively, therefore more representative of the race conditions expected on Sunday, it ensured there was more running in the session than has previously been the case, with 16 of the 22 drivers completing at least 20 laps.

FP1 TIMES