The first practice session for the new season of F1 took place today in Bahrain, with a somewhat surprising result. Against all the odds, Adrian Sutil, for Force India, went one better than all his opponents by topping the board with a time of 1min56.583s.

The Silverstone-based team had impressed during testing, but all their expectations must have been exceeded by Sutil’s time. Ferrari new boy Alonso was second in the placings with a time 0.2 secs slower than Sutil, while Robert Kubica, for Renault, stirred things up with the third quickest time.

Felippe Massa took fourth while the new team of Jensen Button and Lewis Hamilton, for McLaren, took fifth and sixth in that order. Meanwhile I’m sure most of you are intrigued about the return of Michael Schumacher who I’ve not mentioned yet. He seemed to have a bit of an effort on his hands with his Mercedes WO1 and finally ended up in 10th position, 2 places behind his team-mate Rosberg. He was seen in heated discussions afterwards with team boss Ross Brawn, so things are not looking good for him at the moment.

In the meantime Red Bull, who is expected to be a contender this season, had an unimpressive start to their campaign with Webber and Vettel, in 9th and 13th respectively. As expected then, Ferrari and McLaren seem almost inseparable at the moment, with Red Bull and Mercedes not far behind. The outstanding success so far though is for Force India, building on their breakthrough last season.

For more on this story and full list of times go to itv-f1.com. Are you shocked or not surprised at all at Force India’s showing in practice? Tell us your thoughts on the new season and who are you most looking forward to seeing race?

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