Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany steers his vehicle during the first practice session for the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix, at the Formula One Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain, Friday, April 14, 2017. The.
The two-team battle was extended to three when Verstappen clocked his fastest lap with three minutes remaining before Hamilton secured second for the session, one-tenth adrift of the Dutchman, but almost half a second clear of Vettel.
Despite ending both free practice sessions at the Bahrain International Circuit on Friday with the quickest time, Sebastian Vettel was far from happy with his day, particularly when he briefly stopped on track with an issue before being able to crawl back to the pits.
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"Big congratulations to Valtteri", said Hamilton.
Rosberg was amongst the first to congratulate the pole sittter.
Ferrari later said it was a turbo problem that stopped him, and it changed the internal combustion engine, turbo and MGU-H on his vehicle for FP2.
"Obviously, I will try my hardest to win the race but whichever the case, he's going to have one (victory) at some stage this year".
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(AP Photo/Luca Bruno). Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas of Finland steers his vehicle during the first practice session for the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix, at the Formula One Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain, Friday, April 14, 2017. The.
"I think we've done a really good job this weekend to focus on the evening conditions and we really managed to get that bit of lap time out of the auto in the slightly cooler conditions".
Bottas clocked a leading time of 1 minute, 28.769 seconds over the 5.4-kilometer (3.3-mile) track in Sakhir, compared to 1:28.792 for Hamilton.
The Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo was fourth-fastest while the third row on the grid in Sunday's race will feature Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen in the second Red Bull.
But temperatures upwards of 35 degrees Celsius are still expected and the British driver admitted that qualifying and the race will be a battle inside the cockpit as much as anything else.
And, prior to qualifying, there had been a sense of a changing of the guard after Mercedes failed to top either of the three practice sessions for the first time since the start of the 2014 season.
Fernando Alonso led McLaren's charge once again in qualifying, making it through to Q2 despite the deficiencies with the Honda power unit.
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