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Bahrain GP2: King leads Rossi in Racing Engineering 1-2

Racing Engineering pairing Jordan King and Alexander Rossi topped free practice for the opening GP2 event of the year in Bahrain

Rossi hit the top of the timesheets early on with a lap of 1m42.451s, with rookie King later eclipsing that by just one-hundredth of a second.

With the pre-season test in Bahrain suggesting the field would be very competitive up front, expectations were lived up to with Williams F1 development driver Alex Lynn third fastest for DAMS, just 0.068 seconds off King.

That was enough to put him ahead of title favourite Stoffel Vandoorne, who was a tenth slower and 0.171s off the overall pace in the lead ART Grand Prix entry.

Why GP2 could give McLaren a problem

The Belgian's session came to a premature end with seven minutes remaining when he ground to a halt shortly after the first corner with a mechanical problem.

There was then a gap back to the Campos Racing cars of Arthur Pic and Rio Haryanto, respectively five and six-tenths off the pace.

Red Bull-backed Pierre Gasly in the second DAMS car was expected to be up front, but a moment at Turn 10, the left-hander onto the back straight, cost him time and left him eight-tenths down.

Russian Time driver Mitch Evans, another who showed well in testing, was unable to match the pace of the frontrunners and ended the session down in eighth ahead of Ferrari junior Raffaele Marciello's Trident entry and Honda-backed Japanese F3 champion Nobuharu Matsushita in the second ART car.

Carlin, which finished last season with Felipe Nasr third in the championship, had a disappointing session after waiting until the first 15 minutes had passed before sending out its drivers.

Category veteran Julian Leal ended up 12th fastest behind Artem Markelov, with GP2 race winner Marco Sorensen down in 15th place.

Richie Stanaway, currently on a one-round deal with the Status team, was 17th ahead of Sergio Canamasas, who landed an eleventh-hour seat with MP Motorsport.

This session marked the first time that the new GP2 DRS was used in an official race-weekend session, with drivers permitted to activate the device in the same zones as F1 uses.

PRACTICE ONE TIMES:

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Jordan King Racing Engineering 1m42.441s - 17
2 Alexander Rossi Racing Engineering 1m42.451s 0.010s 20
3 Alex Lynn DAMS 1m42.509s 0.068s 18
4 Stoffel Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 1m42.612s 0.171s 14
5 Arthur Pic Campos Racing 1m42.948s 0.507s 16
6 Rio Haryanto Campos Racing 1m43.043s 0.602s 16
7 Pierre Gasly DAMS 1m43.249s 0.808s 18
8 Mitch Evans RUSSIAN TIME 1m43.327s 0.886s 16
9 Raffaele Marciello Trident 1m43.400s 0.959s 16
10 Nobuharu Matsushita ART Grand Prix 1m43.422s 0.981s 18
11 Artem Markelov RUSSIAN TIME 1m43.457s 1.016s 18
12 Julian Leal Carlin 1m43.581s 1.140s 12
13 Sergey Sirotkin Rapax 1m43.684s 1.243s 15
14 Norman Nato Arden International 1m43.762s 1.321s 14
15 Marco Sorensen Carlin 1m43.774s 1.333s 16
16 Robert Visoiu Rapax 1m43.810s 1.369s 13
17 Richie Stanaway Status Grand Prix 1m43.814s 1.373s 16
18 Sergio Canamasas MP Motorsport 1m43.948s 1.507s 14
19 Nathanael Berthon Lazarus 1m44.178s 1.737s 14
20 Rene Binder Trident 1m44.233s 1.792s 18
21 Marlon Stockinger Status Grand Prix 1m44.515s 2.074s 12
22 Daniel de Jong MP Motorsport 1m44.517s 2.076s 15
23 Andre Negrao Arden International 1m44.529s 2.088s 14
24 Zoel Amberg Lazarus 1m51.825s 9.384s 5


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