Ferrari demonstrate speed at Bahrain

The two Ferraris topped the time sheets in both free practice sessions held today at the Sakhir circuit. Felipe Massa was quickest in the morning and afternoon, with his team-mate, world champion Kimi Raikkonen behind him each time.

As usual on a Friday, the programme centred on finding the best set-up and on comparing the two types of Bridgestone tyre on offer in Bahrain. "It was a good day, but it's too early to draw any conclusions regarding the final outcome of this weekend," commented Stefano Domenicali. "We worked well, without any particular niggles and now we must concentrate on preparation for qualifying and the race."

Felipe Massa: "I am pleased with this first day of free practice. Right from the start this morning, I found some good settings for the car and then, in the afternoon, the track conditions improved considerably. I think we are working in the right direction in terms of setting up the car and so I feel confident about the rest of the weekend. I like this track and think we will be very competitive. The wind is expected to be stronger tomorrow and on Sunday and that would make driving more difficult, but on the plus side, there will be more grip."

Kimi Raikkonen: "All in all, I am happy with the way things went this morning and even more so with the afternoon. We tried various different set-ups, starting off with the settings we defined when testing here in February. We picked up a lot of data to work with for qualifying and the race. The car is going well and I think we will be competitive even if it is always difficult to say where we are compared to the others. The performance of both types of tyre is reasonably similar."

Luca Baldisserri: "Track conditions this morning were rather difficult, because of all the sand blown onto the track by the strong winds that we had here over the past few days. In the afternoon, as the cars did more and more laps, the situation improved. We got through all our programme, working on finding the best set-up and on the comparison of the two types of tyre available to us. I reckon we can be satisfied with what we achieved in both these areas. Being able to refer to our February tests was definitely useful, but we have to bear in mind that the weather is different."