Ferrari expecting close race

Reigning champion Michael Schumacher came out on top in the very first session to be held at the newly-constructed Bahrain International Circuit, while team-mate Rubens Barrichello headed the field in this afternoon's second session.

With those results, Ferrari is confident it is in good shape for the rest of the weekend, but Schumacher is not expecting to be able to waltz away from the rest of the field.

"It looks like the rest of the weekend will be a great challenge and I am looking forward to that," he said. "It seems that everyone is quite close and from our point of view, we can say we have everything in place to be competitive."

Technical director Ross Brawn agreed, saying: "We have a clear picture as regards the tyres and all the signs point to it being a close race, which is what we expected, as the characteristics of the track do not play to our strengths. It will be an interesting weekend."

He added that the first sessions at a new track had been predictably "chaotic" but said that problems on track had not been caused by the desert sand, as was expected before the weekend.

"There were several cars going off the track," he said. "Our drivers sometimes came to a corner and found there was a lack of grip because of dust thrown on to the circuit."

Barrichello also said the track surface was very slippery but again absolved the sand of any blame. "The track is very dirty, so we are having to second-guess the set-up for Sunday. The track has less grip than I expected. But it is not because of the sand, simply because the surface is still new."