Friday practice - selected driver quotes
Boasting some of the closest times we have seen so far this season, the opening day in Bahrain was action-packed.
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari (1st, 1m 33.527s): 
"It is too early to say where everyone stands, but the performance levels of the top teams seems to be very close. Today, it was difficult to find the right balance of the car, partly because at this track, the wind makes the car difficult to drive. Towards the end of the second session, we found some good settings and now we must keep on that track to find a bit more speed to keep ahead of the rest. But all in all we can be satisfied with the work we have done today."
Lewis Hamilton, McLaren (2nd, +0.013s):
"It has been a positive session today. In the first practice the track was very dirty and slippery so there was no point spending too much time looking at the set-up. In the second session we began our fine tuning and completed a couple of long runs. I think I was quicker and more consistent than previously in the long runs which is positive and there is definitely more to come. We now have quite a bit of data to look at but so far so good."
Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber (3rd, +0.205s):
"The second session was better, but we still have balance problems. We used the spare car for the second practice because this morning I faced the same problems as in Malaysia. This one is more consistent and so now we have to analyse why this happens. We changed the set-up a bit because the car's handling is still not perfect, but things are not looking bad. The track was very dirty, especially in the morning session. When we tested here before Australia we did thirty ones and now we are doing thirty threes, but of course there is some time coming as the rubber goes down as long as there is no rain. If it rains again it will be the same story, and if the wind comes there will be sand on the track and that can change the conditions quite a lot."
Felipe Massa, Ferrari (4th, +0.245s):
"I am pretty happy with the handling of the car, which has allowed me to be very consistent in terms of performance over long runs. We have a good point from which to work over the rest of the weekend. In particular, we have to work on improving our performance on the first lap on new tyres. It all looks very close, but we have everything we need to do well in qualifying and in the race."
Fernando Alonso, McLaren (5th, +0.257s):
"Two trouble-free practice sessions where we made positive progress. The track was very dirty and continued to improve throughout the session. We spent our time perfecting the set-up and evaluating the tyres. I completed some long runs and all in all I think we are closer to the Ferraris than we have been so far this season on a Friday but it’s a long weekend so we will see what happens."
source :
www.f1.com
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Qualifying - Saturday 14 April - 16:30 [IST]
till Japan.
