Rosberg plays down early initiative

Mercedes driver tops practice for Bahrain GP

MANAMA: Nico Rosberg was playing down his and the Mercedes’ team’s supremacy after topping the times in the second free practice session for Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

Just five days after claiming his maiden F1 victory, the 26-year-old German was comfortably fastest ahead of the Red Bulls driven by Australian Mark Webber and defending champion Sebastian Vettel. But after the session he said he was concerned about his tyres overheating in the high temperatures.

“It has been a good day,” said the Mercedes driver. “It’s nice to be quickest on low fuel, but as we know anyway the car is good on lower fuel. We have to analyse things. In general, conditions are probably the worst they have been here with the tyres overheating.

“We have to make changes because out there it’s very unusual - conditions are very tough.”

Schumacher, who was fifth fastest behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton of McLaren, said that he expected tyre problems would be common to all the teams all weekend. The seven time champion said, “The tyres are a big issue because they’re just going away like nothing, but it’s the same problem for everybody. It will improve a bit, but let’s see how many tyres we’re going to need in the race.”

Rosberg was fastest after the Force India team had chosen to withdraw early on safety grounds.

On a tense day with intensified security around the Sakhir circuit, Rosberg produced a measured performance to clock the best lap midway through the 90-minutes’ action in one minute and 32.816 seconds.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2012.