DATE: 2010/03/13   TIME: 00:45:33       

Nico Rosberg led Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button in second practice for the season-opening grand prix at Sakhir, Bahrain.

..It was the second occasion on the opening day of the Formula One season that returning seven-times champion Schumacher was trumped in the timesheets by Mercedes team-mate Rosberg on the Silver Arrows' own return to the sport.

However the German will be heartened by the fact that they were able to compete for the top places, unlike the morning session where they finished eighth and 10th respectively.

Like Schumacher, Hamilton in second was half a second off top spot while Button was 0.2s further back to complete a top four of Mercedes-powered cars.

In truth the times offered little insight into possible performance during Saturday's qualifying session, as most teams concentrated on long stints in the last hour of the session - mindful of the need to carry a full race's worth of fuel from the beginning of Sunday's contest.

On paper Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso disappointed for Ferrari before improving late on to take seventh and ninth respectively; but in reality they were getting their heavy running out of the way early.

Hamilton reported after only four competitive laps that his rear tyres were "destroyed", a complaint echoed by others later in the run-out at the desert complex which sees sand blown on to the track even when wind speed is low, as was the case here.

And the 2008 champion then drew attention to a bump at the beginning of the new extended section at Sakhir, around turn six, which caused the MP4-25 to bottom out. Judging the height of the undercarriage could therefore be crucial over the weekend, especially with the new mammoth fuel tanks in use.

A flurry of P1-setting early times included reigning world champion Button snatching top spot from his compatriot and colleague before Nico Hulkenberg took over; then a few minutes later, after only 20 of the 90-minute session, Rosberg went fastest.

He remained there for its remainder, with one improvement of a tenth of a second.

Jarno Trulli lost some bodywork off his Lotus before going on to finish 19th behind team-mate Heikki Kovalainen, with the sister Virgins of Timo Glock and Lucas Di Grassi then Bruno Senna in the struggling HRT predictably following.

Senna's colleague Karun Chandhok had been hopeful of making it out, but a technical issue put paid to that and left him without any running on the opening day of the Indian's rookie season in F1.

It was also a disappointing time for Red Bull, who - despite seeing him finish in fifth - endured brake problems in Sebastian Vettel's RB6 before a driveshaft issue forced Mark Webber, 17th by the end, to walk away.

Their other team Toro Rosso were also plagued by problems, as Sebastien Buemi was sidelined throughout by a technical fault while Jaime Alguersuari, 16th at the close, almost found the barriers with a spin.

Renault made steady progress with debutant Vitaly Petrov eighth and Robert Kubica 15th behind Vitantonio Liuzzi of Force India; his team-mate FP1 leader Adrian Sutil was 12th with Rubens Barrichello between them.

The Saubers of Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi sat 10th and 11th once all laps were completed.