Manama: Germany’s Nico Rosberg, who has yet to transform his practice pace into anything higher than sixth place in a race this season, put Williams on top of the timesheets at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Friday.

Rosberg, son of 1982 champion Keke, lapped the Sakhir circuit in a time of one minute 33.339 seconds. The German has now been quickest in seven of the 11 practice sessions this year.

“You can only compare your performance to other race weekends, so relatively I think we are looking okay,” said Rosberg. “The team brought some new parts to Bahrain and they seem to be working well.”

Force India, who have yet to score a point since their debut at the start of last season, showed a notable improvement with a new rear diffuser and floor helping Germany’s Adrian Sutil end the afternoon seventh fastest.

Renault’s double world champion Fernando Alonso was second fastest in the afternoon. Lewis Hamilton had earlier shrugged off the troubles surrounding his McLaren team to clock the quickest time in the morning.

The Briton, whose team risk heavy sanctions at a hearing in Paris next week after a storm over lying to stewards at the Australian season-opener, lapped in 1:33.647.

Only Rosberg, Alonso and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli went faster in the afternoon.

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, winner of the last race in China, was fourth fastest in the second session ahead of Australian team mate Mark Webber and Brawn GP’s championship leader Jenson Button. (REUTERS)