After a long winter, Formula One is officially back! The cars got back on track early this morning, and as usual, we are not any closer to understanding the pecking order between the teams. FP1 saw all the teams run their installation laps and start cranking out a few laps, with HRT running their first ever laps in the brand new car. Having missed all of winter testing, the car was suffering problems and sat on stands until the last few minutes of FP1. Senna had a chance to run 3 installation laps to shake down the car and returned to the pits without running an actual timed lap. Teammate Karun Chandhok had it worst, watching from the sidelines as his car was not ready to run. His car has not hit the track for either sessions today.

The Bahrain 2010 Driver's Line-Up Parade - Photo Credit @thefifthdriver (twitter)

The big news today is that the FIA has given McLaren the go ahead on their driver controlled blown wing system, which has given Hamilton the top trap speeds for both sessions at 311km/h. There were many vocal opponents to the system, mainly, Bob Bell from Renault, who ranted live on the BBC broadcast. He believes McLaren is cheating, even though he also admits that the system does adhere to the regulations. Ross Brawn from Mercedes was also critical of the system, complaining that the teams now have to invest a huge amount of money to research, copy, and develop a competing system. Funny he wasn’t complaining last year when his Brawn GP car had the radical double diffuser, which was also approved, and led to the exact scenario for the other teams that had to copy the idea.

Red Bull has given up on protests, and knows they have to copy the system. It started off right at the photo shoot before FP1, where Webber and Vettel were sneaking around the McLaren chassis and looking inside whenever possible.

As teams struggle to copy the system, some interesting tidbits has come to light. For 2010, the monocoque is homogolated, therefore you can not change the tub to accomodate the system. McLaren has a hole in their tub in front of the driver for the snorkel to draw air into the cockpit control system, so other teams can not simply drill in a new hole there. They have to use existing holes, which will be hard to come by. F1 engineers do not like holes in the tub, as it weakens the stiffness of the tub. An option is to run it through the nosecone, with the inlet at the tip, but trying to get the airflow from there, to a driver control system, to the rear wing will prove difficult with a lack of access holes. F1 engineers are most likely the smartest engineers on this planet, so expect the teams to find and copy the system a few races in.

Renault, being off the pace as predicted, has asked the FIA to allow them to make changes to their engines. The team feels that they are 30hp behind the front runners, and has asked for special permission to modify their engines to catch up. If this gets approved, Red Bull will benefit huge, as a boost in power will bring them closer to the front runners. Even though Red Bull was a heavy favorite in pre-season testing, they did not make a big impression in either practice sessions.

Free Practice 2 saw most teams doing long run simulations, where Hamilton somehow managed to destroy his rear tires in only 4 laps at the beginning of the session. As tire wear management will be the key to winning races this year, Lewis has a bit of work to do to catch up to Button’s superior tire management skills. Because most teams were doing long runs, there were no blistering times, and again, we’re still just as lost as we were 2 weeks ago when winter testing wrapped up as to where the teams stand. At Mercedes, Rosberg clocked the fastest time, which means he beat out his teammate, seven time World Champion Michael Schumacher, in both sessions. Awesome.

Back to HRT, how did they end up doing? Senna got a few timed laps in, and ended FP2 with the car stopped as the rear wheel almost fell of the car. Ouch.

FP1

1. Sutil 1:56.583
2. Alonso 1:56.766 +0.183
3. Kubica 1:57.041 +0.458
4. Massa 1:57.055 +0.472
5. Button 1:57.068 +0.485
6. Hamilton 1:57.163 +0.580
7. Liuzzi 1:57.194 +0.611
8. Rosberg 1:57.199 +0.616
9. Webber 1:57.255 +0.672
10. Schumacher 1:57.662 +1.079

FP2

1. Rosberg 1:55.409
2. Hamilton 1:55.854 +0.445
3. Schumacher 1:55.903 +0.494
4. Button 1:56.076 +0.667
5. Vettel 1:56.459 +1.050
6. Hulkenberg 1:56.501 +1.092
7. Massa 1:56.555 +1.146
8. Petrov 1:56.750 +1.341
9. Alonso 1:57.140 +1.731
10. De La Rosa 1:57.255 +1.846