Ricciardo heads first practice in Bahrain

F1 Grand Prix, GP Bahrain, Bahrain International Circuit

The first practice session at Sakhir saw Daniel Ricciardo top the timing sheets, nothing that Red Bull may very well be in the fight for this weekend's race win. The Australian was followed by Bottas and Raikkonen, the Finnish duo that ended up at 3 and 4 tenths respectively.

While it's still early days, all top teams chose to run the medium and soft tyres, hence not the faster super softs just yet. This makes the times more or less comparable, even though Lewis Hamilton did not seem to be bothered by the timing sheet, ending up in 5th, more than 1.2s off the pace.

Romain Grosjean was again the best of the rest, going 6th fastest in the Haas Ferrari. Pierre Gasly ended up 7th after a troubling Australian Grand Prix for Toro Rosso. The rest of the weekend will tell if Toro Rosso indeed is in better form at Bahrain.

Behind him there's the second haas of Magnussen, along with the duo's from Renault and McLaren.

Just like Toro Rosso, Sauber also appeared to fare better than at Australia, leaving Force India behind in the pecking order.

Meanwhile, there was trouble for Max Verstappen, whose Red Bull grounded to a halt on only his second lap of the session. What looked like an eletrical problem or a power unit shutdown ended the Dutchman's session very rapidly, despite his efforts to push the car back into the pitlane.