F1 LIVE | The second free practice for the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix

The 2022 Formula 1 season gets underway this weekend with the Bahrain Grand Prix. In this liveblog, you can follow the second free practice ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix and see how the teams prepare for the first race of the year.

F1 LIVE | FP2 for the Bahrain Grand Prix

Whereas last week the teams were still preparing for the season, today they are only preparing for this weekend's qualifying and race. Although we are probably not going to see the fastest lap times yet, we can expect Friday to show some more details. For example, we may get a glimpse of how the cars look on the long runs.

New season, a clean slate

All teams are still on equal ground for the time being, but that will change after Sunday. This weekend marks the start of the 2022 F1 season. That means the wait is over and all F1 fans will finally get to see which team did its homework best over the winter. In the first practice sessions, the teams are mostly running their own program. 

The hope is that some teams who have it right and are on track in this second free practice are already making some raking shots at the timesheet. Possibly there is a team that already dares to try a qualifying run. The chance of that is small because teams often only do that in FP3, so if we are not much wiser after today's second session we will certainly be after Saturday.

Are teams overcoming the problems?

It is not out of the question that other teams and drivers will get involved in the battle with Verstappen and Hamilton. Mercedes debutant George Russell will be very eager for the first time in the Mercedes in Bahrain after he took Hamilton's place at the same circuit in 2020. Ferrari also looked very strong during testing and may be able to compete this weekend. Indeed, Charles Leclerc, like Russell, will be keen to claim the victory he missed out on in Bahrain in 2019 due to a broken engine.

Other than that, hopefully, we can be surprised by the teams and drivers this weekend. However, it is important that teams like Alpine, Aston Martin, Haas and Alfa Romeo have better control of the porpoising problem. During the test days they, like Mercedes, suffered from this problem. Although most teams have been able to solve it reasonably well, the problem does not seem to have disappeared yet. Maybe the first tests will show that big steps have been made.