Hamilton tops first practice in Bahrain

The world champion was comfortably fastest for most of the session and even a late charge from BMW drivers Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica on the super-soft tyres was not enough to topple the Briton.

After the now seemingly obligatory 20-minute silence following the installation laps on Friday morning, Sebastien Bourdais was the first to lap the circuit properly. But very quickly his time was eclipsed by Nico Rosberg who put in a sequence of laps that culminated in a 1m34.363s best.

That was good enough to keep the German at the top of the times until just beyond the halfway mark when Hamilton moved ahead.

The McLaren man appeared to benefit from the latest modifications to the MP4-24 to produce a 1m34.189s lap time.

An interesting characteristic of the Bahrain circuit though was that it took drivers several laps to get the best out of the Bridgestone medium slicks - and so it was that Hamilton then improved again to go 0.716s faster than the Williams.

His 1m33.647s lap was not bettered by anyone for the rest of the session, but Rosberg would succumb to the soft-rubbered BMWs late-on. The Williams driver might have improved himself but for yellow flags at Turn 8 when Sebastian Buemi's Toro Rosso stopped on the exit of Turn 8 late-on.

Behind the top four, was world championship leader Jenson Button who struggled early in the session with an upshift problem in his gearbox.

Heikki Kovalainen was sixth for McLaren ahead of the second Brawn of Rubens Barrichello.

Felipe Massa and Mark Webber were next up, while Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was lucky to complete the session in tenth. The Finn was one of several drivers to have a moment, but his involved a lurid slide that saw him just miss the barriers at Turn 2 right at the start of practice.

Turn 10 saw more than its fair share of action as well, with Kovalainen, Fernando Alonso, Buemi, Fisichella, Heidfeld just some of the drivers to run wide at the tricky tight left-hander.

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time              Laps
 1.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:33.647 +         19
 2.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber           (B)  1:33.907 + 0.260   17
 3.  Kubica        BMW Sauber           (B)  1:33.938 + 0.291   17
 4.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:34.227 + 0.580   24
 5.  Button        Brawn GP-Mercedes    (B)  1:34.434 + 0.787   15
 6.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:34.502 + 0.855   24
 7.  Barrichello   Brawn GP-Mercedes    (B)  1:34.531 + 0.884   18
 8.  Massa         Ferrari              (B)  1:34.589 + 0.942   17
 9.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:34.827 + 1.180   21
10.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              (B)  1:34.827 + 1.180   19
11.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:34.880 + 1.233   24
12.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:34.938 + 1.291   21
13.  Piquet        Renault              (B)  1:34.974 + 1.327   21
14.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes (B)  1:35.021 + 1.374   18
15.  Trulli        Toyota               (B)  1:35.036 + 1.389   22
16.  Fisichella    Force India-Mercedes (B)  1:35.042 + 1.395   16
17.  Glock         Toyota               (B)  1:35.333 + 1.686   20
18.  Alonso        Renault              (B)  1:35.348 + 1.701   24
19.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  1:35.353 + 1.706   22
20.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  1:35.369 + 1.722   15

All timing unofficial