Nico Rosberg deftly placed his Mercedes Petronas MGP W01 at the top of the timing monitors on Friday afternoon in Bahrain, just atop of McLaren, Red Bull and Williams. The young German – a veteran of 70 Grand Prix starts – aimed and shot his Silver Arrow around the Sakhir Circuit in 1m 55.409s early in the hour and a half session, with Lewis Hamilton second for McLaren on 1m 55.854s ahead of Michael Schumacher on 1m 55.903s and Jenson Button on 1m 56.076s.

Sebastian Vettel was fifth for Red Bull despite one quick off-track moment in Turn 22. The German lapped in 1m 56.459s to head fellow German Nico Hulkenberg, sixth for Williams on 1m 56.501s. Felipe Massa was one of few who improved late in the session, moving the Ferrari up to seventh on 1m 56.555s.

Vitaly Petrov was Renault’s better runner in eighth on 1m 56.750s, while Fernando Alonso took ninth in 1m 57.140s and Pedro de la Rosa gave Peter Sauber cause to smile with 1m 57.255s for 10th. Kamui Kobayashi backed his team mate with 1m 57.352s for 11th.

Adrian Sutil focused on high-fuel runs for Force India for the 12th best time of 1m 57.361s, which left him ahead of Rubens Barrichello (1m 57.452s) and Vitantonio Liuzzi (1m 57.833s).

Robert Kubica was 15th for Renault on 1m 58.155s, with a gap to Jaime Alguersuari who was Toro Rosso’s faster driver after Sebastien Buemi only did a lap before losing the rest of the session to mechanical gremlins. The Spaniard had a lucky escape when he spun in Turn 13 and just avoided backing his STR5 into a barrier. Mark Webber was another to concentrate on high fuel-load runs, lapping his Red Bull in 2m 00.444s for 17th.

Of the new teams, Lotus came through courtesy of Heikki Kovalainen for 18th place on 2m 00.873s. Team mate Jarno Trulli shadowed him with 2m 00.990s, which left the green and yellow cars comfortably ahead of the black and red Virgins. Timo Glock lapped his VR-01 in 2m 02.037s, with team mate Lucas di Grassi close on 2m 02.188s.

Bruno Senna did quite a few laps this time in his HRT, for a best of 2m 06.968s, but once again Karun Chandhok’s car could not be readied in time. Right at the end Senna stopped on the track, with suspected mechanical problems.

In many ways this was another inconclusive session because of the need to do race preparation work, but one way or another the true order of 2010 will be confirmed in qualifying on Saturday.