Kimi hit by engine penalty

"All of a sudden I just lost power," said the Finn. "It's a shame because I was going for it having used the first session to familiarise myself with the track."

Mercedes Motorsport boss Norbert Haug explained: "Kimi's engine stopped after a fire in the air tray caused by a fuel leak. The damage to the engine was severe enough that we need to change it."

Over at Renault, Jarno Trulli stopped in the second session due to a problem with the engine's fuel system. The Italian's car does not, however, require the engine to be changed, so he remains free of the single engine rule.

Raikkonen's team-mate David Coulthard didn't exactly enjoy an incident-free first day either. Pushing hard through one of Bahrain's high-speed esses, DC suffered a left rear tyre deflation that sent him spinning into the sand.

"Obviously not the best start to the weekend," he said. "Towards the end of the second session I had a tyre failure which caused me to go off the track and we are looking into why at the moment as it can be a number of factors. However I did manage to get a few laps in and the track does represent an interesting challenge."

McLaren team principal Ron Dennis summed up: "A very disruptive first day for both drivers. As always we were concentrating on optimising our race pace, which at this stage doesn't look too bad."