Max Chilton, Marcus Ericsson and Adrian Sutil all encountered problems during the second practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix today, and will be keen on recovering the time lost tomorrow ahead of qualifying.
After setting an impressive pace on the soft tire in his Marussia, Chilton spun out at the final corner with a suspected brake failure. The new brake-by-wire system has been problematic for a number of drivers, and Chilton was perplexed by the incident, crying: “What on earth happened there!?” over the radio to his team following the incident.
Adrian Sutil’s Sauber was the next car to hit trouble when he too stopped on entry to turn four at the top of the hill. The team is yet to confirm what the problem what, but it only adds to the list of issues currently blighting the Swiss outfit.
With six minutes to go in the session, Marcus Ericsson became the third and final driver to hit trouble as his Caterham came to a stop on the side of the back straight.
“I was having power issues throughout most of the first run which meant I wasn’t really able to push,” the Swede explained. “The power was coming in and out in a way that wasn’t really predictable, so I didn’t know what was going to happen when I got on the throttle coming out of each corner.
“Unfortunately I didn’t get one lap without that issue so the final lap times really weren’t a clear guide to where we are performance-wise, but we’ll look at that in detail tonight.”
In contrast, Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes enjoyed a very successful session and comfortably set the fastest time of FP2 on Friday as night fell in Bahrain.
All three drivers will be hoping to bounce back tomorrow during FP3 ahead of qualifying. The latter is live on CNBC and Live Extra from 11am ET.
