Sebastian Vettel topped both Friday sessions for Ferrari in Bahrain. Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo completed the top 3, both of them very close to the leader of the session.
The first part of the session was led by Räikkönen with the soft compound, closely followed by Hamilton, less than 0.1s behind. Bottas and Vettel were 3 tenths off Räikkönen‘s lap. From the rest, Verstappen (+0,5) and Ricciardo (+0,8) were the only ones 1s below Räikkönen‘s time. The next one was Hülkenberg, who surprised even more with his time on supersofts. Vettel went 1st just ahead of Bottas and Ricciardo, who were less than 1 tenth behind. Räikkönen (+0.2), Hamilton (+0.3), Hülkenberg (+0.6), Massa (+0.8), Verstappen (+0.9), Grosjean (+1.2) and Kvyat (+1.4) completed the top 10, which would stay unchanged until the end as they tested long runs with more fuel.
Vettel‘s car shut down suddenly, but he was able to make it to the pit lane and go back on track later. Meanwhile, after having mechanical issues in FP1, Vandoorne went out to the track in the second half of the session with a new engine in his McLaren.