Bahrain F1 test: Ricciardo leads Hamilton on first morning

Daniel Ricciardo set the pace on the opening morning of the Bahrain in-season test on Tuesday, as his Red Bull team focused on trying to understand how to extract more speed from its car on single laps.

The Australian’s programme just before the lunch break was a series of short runs, and it was on one of these that he set the best time of 1m32.349s with supersofts to knock Lewis Hamilton off the top of the timesheets.

Hamilton had bounced back from an early morning electrical problem that brought out a red flag to get on with his intense programme.

With Mercedes determined to use this week’s running to get a better understanding of tyre management, its day did not get off to the best start when Hamilton’s W08 came to a halt with an 'electrical disconnection' problem just 15 minutes into the day's running.

There was further frustration when it took track officials nearly 25 minutes to get his car back to the pits.

But with the issue quickly resolved, Hamilton was able to resume, and his best lap of 1m32.822s was 0.473s slower than Ricciardo.

Nico Hulkenberg spent the morning conducting aerodynamic testing for Renault and ended up third-fastest, with the team eager to find improvements to its car to help with its long-run pace.

Fourth-fastest was Williams’ Lance Stroll, whose main focus was on tyre management as he spent the morning experimenting with ways to better understand and manage the Pirellis.

Romain Grosjean returned to action for Haas, with the Frenchman’s main focus being on trials of new products from brake supplier Carbone Industrie, as the American team weighs up whether or not to switch from Brembo.

Testing runs until 6.10pm local time tonight thanks to a 10-minute delay to the test getting underway in the morning after shipping containers had been left in a dangerous position at the end of the pit lane.

The only other red flag of the first morning was caused by Toro Rosso’s Sean Gelael, whose car suffered a suspected engine failure after four laps. A fresh Renault power unit was fitted for the Indonesian to return to action later on.

There were also engine woes for Honda too, with McLaren development driver Oliver Turvey only able to complete two installation laps in the morning.

Honda had discovered a water leak in the ERS, which has prompted the need for a replacement power unit to be fitted.

Morning testing times:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1m32.349s		43
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m32.822s	0.473s	33
3	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1m33.624s	1.275s	43
4	Lance Stroll	Williams	1m33.729s	1.380s	35
5	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1m33.848s	1.499s	40
6	Antonio Giovinazzi	Ferrari	1m34.967s	2.618s	67
7	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1m35.043s	2.694s	48
8	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1m35.317s	2.968s	52
9	Alfonso Celis Jr	Force India	1m37.661s	5.312s	21
10	Sean Gelael	Toro Rosso	1m38.111s	5.672s	27
11	Oliver Turvey	McLaren	no time	-	2