Staff Writer 
McLaren’s Lando Norris set the pace in a largely unrepresentative first practice session at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Norris headed Alpine’s Pierre Gasly by 0.238 seconds with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton third, 0.596secs slower than Norris, and Williams driver Alex Albon fourth.
Albon narrowly avoided a collision with the other Williams of Luke Browning after a miscommunication when Browning was on a flying lap and came across Albon’s car on the entry to Turn 12.
Both went the same direction when Albon was trying to get out of Browning’s way, but a crash was avoided.
Six of the cars were not driven by their regular drivers because teams were fulfilling their requirements to run young drivers twice in the season.
Further reducing the relevance of the session was the fact that it was run in daylight in temperatures of 35C, while qualifying and the race start at twilight.
Haas driver Esteban Ocon was fifth fastest from Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg, Alpine’s Jack Doohan, Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson, the Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
World champion Max Verstappen was one of the drivers to sit out the session, with Ayumi Iwasa driving his car and ending the session 19th.
Browning was 13th and Swede Dino Beganovic 14th in Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.
Felipe Drugovich, who had a grandstand view of the Albon-Browining incident, was 16th in Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin ahead of Rio Hirakawa in the Haas, after being announced as their reserve driver earlier this week.
Frederik Vesti was 18th in George Russell’s Mercedes. Mercedes race driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli was slowest of all after experiencing engine problems. – bbc.com
