Rosberg fastest in final practice in Bahrain

Nico Rosberg took the honours in final practice for tomorrow’s Bahrain Grand Prix, ending Felipe Massa’s bid for perfection.

The Brazilian, who won this race from pole to flag last season, comfortably topped the timesheets in his Ferrari at the end of both sessions yesterday.

But Massa, under pressure to perform after failing to score a point in the opening two races in Australia and Malaysia, had to settle for second in the closing 60-minute run before qualifying.

As for current championship leader Lewis Hamilton, running in the spare chassis following his smash into a tyre wall yesterday, the 23-year-old was in a miserable 18th place.

Hamilton was 1.138 seconds behind Rosberg, with the Williams star posting a lap of one minute 32.521secs for the 5.421km circuit.

That time, however, was over a second slower than Massa’s best of yesterday, with the teams traditionally running differing fuel loads in the closing session.

Four different manufacturers covered the top-four places, with Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Jarno Trulli in his Toyota taking third and fourth.

In a good morning for Red Bull, David Coulthard was fifth, with Kazuki Nakajima sixth in his Williams, followed by Robert Kubica and Nelson Piquet for BMW Sauber and Renault.

Reigning world champion Kimi Raikkonen, who ran Massa a close second yesterday, was down in ninth place, just over 0.7secs down on Rosberg, with McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen completing the top 10.

Jenson Button was 16th in his Honda, with Super Aguri’s Anthony Davidson 21st and two seconds down, with team-mate Takuma Sato at the back of the pack.