Bahrain Grand Prix 2015: Nico Rosberg fears 'dangerous' Ferrari pace despite Mercedes topping practice times

Rosberg led home a Mercedes one-two on Friday in the Bahrain heat

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes one-two in practice here yesterday, but both drivers said that they believe Ferrari’s long-run pace was "dangerous."

“It looks as if it’s going to be a very close race,” Hamilton said. “Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen look very strong.”

The first session at Bahrain’s Sakhir International Circuit is often derided as the “most meaningless of the season,” because the track’s desert location makes it very slippery on the first day of a grand prix weekend and it takes a while to grip-up as more rubber goes down. But that didn’t stop it being an exciting 90 minutes as eight drivers had turns at the top of the timesheets. Names such as Nico Rosberg, Valtteri Bottas, Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and, at a push given Red Bull’s strife so this season, Daniel Ricciardo, might have been expected. But it was a major surprise to see Fernando Alonso fleetingly put his McLaren in the number one position, before Jos and Sophie Verstappen watched their 17 year-old take over as Max wheeled his Toro Rosso into the top slot.

By the end, Ferrari’s Raikkonen deposed team-mate Vettel by two-tenths of a second, as the Mercedes of Rosberg and Hamilton languished in 15th and 16th places. But racing is as much about knowing when to go fast as it is when not to, as Hamilton had reminded Rosberg last weekend in China. This time there was no need for them to resort to using a valuable set of fresh tyres, as their rivals had.

By the second session, Hamilton was back on top on the same medium-compound tyres, albeit by just a tenth of a second from Vettel. But on the softer-compound tyre it was Rosberg who set the pace from Hamilton, who made a small mistake locking his right front tyre under heavy braking for Turn 8, losing more than the tenth of a second by which Rosberg beat him. Ferrari’s closest runner was Raikkonen this time, half a second further back.

This is a crucial race for Rosberg. Narrowly beaten after a tough battle by Hamilton here last year, despite starting from pole position, he has yet to upstage his world champion team-mate so far this season and risks losing momentum, face and, possibly, motivation, if he can’t get back into the game.

Hamilton insists that things were sorted straight after last Sunday’s Chinese GP, where Rosberg felt he had backed him up into the clutches of the pursuing Vettel while preserving his tyres, and that their relationship is cool again. But as we know from last year, Rosberg harbours bad feelings when he doesn’t get his own way. That’s what the fuss was about in Belgium where they collided, after Hamilton had declined an ill-advised team order in Hungary to make way for him.

Rosberg believes he should have won last year’s race here, and has studied videos of his wheel-to-wheel battle with Hamilton. “I'm here to make it happen. I need to improve in battle. There are things I could have done differently last year, so I'm looking at that and I hope to follow it up well."

But he was adamant that there is no pressure to turn things round here.

"That was already important in Malaysia. It doesn't change. Every race is important. He's 17 points ahead, that's a fact. I need to try to get points back as soon as possible - that's not more important here."

After the second session, Raikkonen was reprimanded for leaving the pit lane incorrectly. Hamilton was initially called up, but the stewards decided he had done nothing wrong.