F2 Bahrain: Haas F1 junior Maini beats McLaren's Norris in practice

In the first competitive running of the new turbocharged F2 2018 car, Trident driver Maini set a best lap of 1m44.549s, which put him 0.051s clear of McLaren junior Lando Norris.

Despite the 45-minute session taking place similar conditions, Maini's lap was some way off the pre-season test times recorded at the same track last month.

Carlin driver Norris was one of the last of the drivers to set an early benchmark after being caught in traffic early on, and he also had to abandon his first proper flying lap.

But he made his eventual flying lap count and led the early part of the session before Maini took over.

Sergio Sette Camara gave Carlin two spots in the top three - as the team returns to F1's feeder championship after a year out.

Camara, a reverse-grid race winner in F2 at Spa last season, finished with a time 0.104s slower than Maini.

Alexander Albon, driving in a one-off deal with DAMS in Bahrain, and reigning GP3 champion George Russell (ART Grand Prix) rounded out the top five, ahead of for last year's championship runner-up Artem Markelov.

The Russian Time driver spent a large part of the session in the pits with his engineers frantically investigating his car.

He did eventually get out to set a flying lap in, and wound up 0.312s adrift in sixth place.

Single-seater veteran and ex-F1 driver Roberto Merhi steered his MP Motorsport car to seventh, ahead of the fastest man in the pre-season test at Sakhir, Arden's Maximilian Gunther.

Antonio Fuoco, driving for series newcomer Charouz Racing System, and Prema Racing's Sean Gelael rounded out the top 10.

Renault F1 reserve Jack Aitken was 11th in the second ART-run car.

Gelael's team-mate Nyck De Vries, who enters the season as one of the title favourites as he races with the team that steered Charles Leclerc to last year's F2 title, struggled during practice and was well down the order in 13th, almost a second off Maini's benchmark.

Practice results

Pos	Driver	Team	Gap	Laps
1	Arjun Maini	Trident	1m44.549s	12
2	Lando Norris	Carlin	0.051s	14
3	Sergio Sette Camara	Carlin	0.104s	11
4	Alexander Albon	DAMS	0.220s	15
5	George Russell	ART Grand Prix	0.263s	13
6	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	0.312s	10
7	Roberto Merhi	MP Motorsport	0.456s	13
8	Maximilian Guenther	BWT Arden	0.461s	16
9	Antonio Fuoco	Charouz Racing System	0.531s	15
10	Sean Gelael	Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing	0.665s	13
11	Jack Aitken	ART Grand Prix	0.719s	14
12	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	0.742s	16
13	Nyck de Vries	Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing	0.780s	12
14	Tadasuke Makino	RUSSIAN TIME	0.782s	14
15	Luca Ghiotto	Campos Vexatec Racing	0.795s	14
16	Santino Ferrucci	Trident	0.870s	14
17	Ralph Boschung	MP Motorsport	1.015s	13
18	Nirei Fukuzumi	BWT Arden	1.300s	16
19	Louis Deletraz	Charouz Racing System	1.409s	14
20	Roy Nissany	Campos Vexatec Racing	1.858s	15