Bahrain F2: Sette Camara leads first practice of 2019

Brazilian Sette Camara, who finished twice on the podium in Bahrain last year with Carlin, was almost three tenths quicker than his DAMS teammate, the Williams-backed Nicholas Latifi.

Settle Camara's time came mid-way through the session, and was almost one-second quicker than the best time from last year's equivalent session, set by Arjun Maini.

All eyes were on Ferrari junior Mick Schumacher for his first session in F2, but he could only manage 12th, one spot behind his Prema teammate Sean Gelael.

Schumacher had topped a day of testing in Jerez but struggled in the concurrent Barcelona test with tyre management.

The cars visibly moved around significantly even on the first and second laps on the medium Pirelli tyre in the session, teeing up what will likely be a degradation-heavy race on Saturday.

The majority of drivers focused on longer runs towards the end of the session, meaning not many people moved from their mid-session laps.

Luca Ghiotto took fourth in the rebranded Virtuosi Racing team, which used to be Russian Time, while debutant and Ferrari junior Callum Ilott put his Sauber Junior Team-backed car in fifth.

That team was Charouz Racing System last year, and is still run by Charouz.

Renault junior Guan Yu Zhou took seventh for Virtuosi on his debut weekend, ahead of pre-season title favourite Nyck de Vries, who takes over George Russell's 2018 title-winning car.

Louis Deletraz had drama from the first lap with his car appearing to be in some sort of safe mode, but recovered to set the eighth quickest time.

Ilott's teammate Juan Manuel Correa – Alfa Romeo's F1 reserve driver – and Honda junior Nobuharu Matsushita rounded out the top 10, Matsushita rejoining the series with Carlin.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Sergio Sette Camara	DAMS	12	1'43.618
2	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	14	1'43.912	0.294
3	Ralph Boschung	Trident	12	1'44.178	0.560
4	Luca Ghiotto	UNI-Virtuosi	13	1'44.232	0.614
5	Callum Ilott	Sauber Junior Team	14	1'44.311	0.693
6	Zhou Guanyu	UNI-Virtuosi	12	1'44.323	0.705
7	Nyck de Vries	ART Grand Prix	17	1'44.362	0.744
8	Louis Deletraz	Carlin	13	1'44.375	0.757
9	Juan Manuel Correa	Sauber Junior Team	14	1'44.546	0.928
10	Nobuharu Matsushita	Carlin	16	1'44.548	0.930
11	Sean Gelael	Prema Powerteam	13	1'44.573	0.955
12	Mick Schumacher	Prema Powerteam	12	1'44.595	0.977
13	Anthoine Hubert	BWT Arden	17	1'44.834	1.216
14	Jack Aitken	Campos Racing	15	1'45.006	1.388
15	Giuliano Alesi	Trident	15	1'45.173	1.555
16	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	16	1'45.324	1.706
17	Nikita Mazepin	ART Grand Prix	17	1'45.572	1.954
18	Dorian Boccolacci	Campos Racing	17	1'45.768	2.150
19	Tatiana Calderon	BWT Arden	14	1'46.363	2.745
20	Mahaveer Raghunathan	MP Motorsport	15	1'46.637	3.019