F1 champ Verstappen ahead of Ferraris in Bahrain GP practice

Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen set the fastest time in Friday's practice session of the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix weekend, finishing ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.

Halfway into the hour in FP2, the reigning champion fitted soft tyres to go fastest with a time of 1m 31.936s before Ferrari's Leclerc managed a fastest lap that was just 0.087s off the pace. His team mate Carlos Sainz jumped to third later on but was half a second away.

Mercedes' George Russell was therefore demoted to fourth (narrowly off Sainz) while Fernando Alonso took P5 as the last driver within a second of Verstappen's pace.

Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas managed to take sixth, the team having fixed his engine after the Finn was forced to sit out much of FP1 with a power unit issue. Red Bull's Sergio Perez was 1.022s off his team mate, the Mexican finishing seventh ahead of Haas's Mick Schumacher in P8.

Lewis Hamilton struggled with porpoising and then complained of a front brake issue midway through the session, finishing ninth and splitting the Haas drivers, as Kevin Magnussen rounded out the top 10 to cap off a good day for the Americans.

AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly finished first in FP1 with 1m 34.193s but complained of a lack of grip in the cooler evening conditions, finishing 13th ahead of team mate Yuki Tsunoda - who is under investigation for both impeding a Leclerc lap, and an incident involving Lance Stroll at the tail-end of the session.

( With inputs from ANI )