Kimi Räikkönen went fastest for Lotus F1 Team on the opening day of action here at round four of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship; the Bahrain Grand Prix. Kimi set a 1min 34.154secs lap using the medium compound tyres in hot conditions during the Friday afternoon practice session.

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director - Technical programme notes

- Kimi ran with the latest front wing specification.
- Kimi evaluated new rear suspension components during the morning session.
- Pirelli’s hard (orange) compound tyre was used in the first session, the hard and medium (white) tyres in the afternoon.


What we learned today:

The latest front wing works well.
We are analysing the data from the new rear suspension components.
The car looks good with both tyre compounds.


Kimi Räikkönen, E21-03 Free practice 1: P9, 1:35.345, 17 laps Free practice 2: P1, 1:34.154, 31 laps

"There’s still more time to be found."

Kimi: “It’s nice to be fastest but you never know what the others are doing; we just stick to our programme and don’t take too much notice of what else is happening. I actually made a mistake through the final corners on my fastest lap, so there’s still more time to be found. It’s tricky to get the setup right here and the wind can make a big difference; it might work for you one way but make things more tricky the other. It wasn’t a bad start today; things aren’t exactly where we want them but we’re reasonably fast, so let’s see what we can do from here.”