Kimi Raikkonen ahead of Sebastian Vettel as Ferrari get the better of struggling Mercedes in Bahrain

Mercedes did not enjoy a positive day of race practice, with Valtteri Bottas third and 0.563 seconds off the pace and team-mate Lewis Hamilton 0.092secs adrift

Ferrari got the better of Mercedes (Getty)

Though Sebastian Vettel roundly declared yesterday that Mercedes are “three to four tenths” of a second ahead of Ferrari, based on what happened last time out when the F1 season kicked off in Australia, that wasn’t the case here in Bahrain this evening.

Lewis Hamilton didn’t head either practice session today. Daniel Ricciardo surprised everyone with a nice lap of 1m 31.060s to lead the afternoon’s first session for Red Bull, from Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and Vettel, leaving early leader Hamilton only fifth.

In this evening’s second session, the Ferraris were ahead, with Raikkonen on 1m 29.817s ahead of Vettel and Bottas, and Hamilton fourth after a scrappy lap on which he was on target to go third before he was held up behind Kevin Magnussen’s Haas.

Raikkonen pulled off at the end with a loose front wheel after a tyre change, and could be given grid place penalties if the stewards, who include Indianapolis 500 winner Danny Sullivan, decide that his car was released unsafely.

We thus have to wait for tomorrow’s final practice session, and then qualifying, to see the true pecking order, and Hamilton himself said again yesterday that it will be three or four races before the full picture emerges.

The main story of the day was the one unravelling in the paddock which, as anticipated, centred on Liberty Media’s much-vaunted proposals for the sport’s future beyond 2021.

These target cheaper, simpler, louder and more powerful engines that remain hybrid and road relevant. Reduced costs with a budget cap that nevertheless maintains F1’s position as the pinnacle of motorsport with a state-of-the-art technology. A revised and more balanced distribution of revenue based on the meritocracy of current performance while also acknowledging longevity of participation. Regulations which facilitate more overtaking, help the drivers to make greater overall contribution to success, while retaining performance differentiators such as aerodynamics, suspension and power unit performance. And, finally, a more streamlined structure between the teams, the FIA and Liberty’s operation arm, FOM.

In the meantime, FOM continue to seek means of facilitating overtaking by making aerodynamic revisions following input from all F1 teams, in readiness for 2019.

What was revealed to the media appeared to be more to a reiteration of previous statements of intent or, if you were cynical, a wishlist. But a lot more detail was vouchsafed to the team principals, especially concerning financial matters. Since Liberty have always been averse to discussing matters in much detail outside the cloistered walls of such conversations, preferring only to open up when action is imminent, some team representatives embraced a similar code of silence.

Neither Mercedes’ Toto Wolff nor Ferrari’s Maurizio Arrivabene, who met immediately after the meeting to discuss their joint feelings, had any meaningful comment to make.

Others, however, were not so bird-mouthed.

“I like the process we are going through,” Force India's Bob Fernley said. “The FIA and FOM are taking the trouble to talk individually to teams and then are making a presentation about what their findings are. And then they are evolving the document and doing the same process again. It might take three or four iterations to this before we get to the final conclusions that they are coming to. But it's a very inclusive process and yet has a very clear direction that it is going in. So everyone can participate on an individual basis but hopefully the FIA and FOM are looking at the best interests of the sport in the long term rather than at an individual teams.

“I don't think it is an eight-two split. There are probably four teams that are going to have to adjust and two of them are probably more willing than the other two. We are going to make sure it is inclusive for everybody and that we can help and support that process. The bilateral agreements were very divisive and we have to avoid that process.”

“It’s good to have a 360 degree picture, which we can now share with the Board,” Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul said. “Then we can go from here.

“But it’s all very generic and the real story will come later in all the details that will need to be discussed. But’s it’s a good starting point.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner looks on from the pit wall (Getty Images)

Red Bull’s Christian Horner thought: “It’s all a bit blue sky, isn’t it? What’s clear is that FOM and the FIA are still not yet on the same page, so there’s still a very long way to go.”

Ross Brawn, the man tasked with shaping the technical future of F1 on behalf of FOM, described the brief meeting more as a means of passing Liberty’s views on to the teams.

“The teams need to digest it now, and then the discussion proper will start. It was a straightforward meeting with no major controversies.”

Chase Carey, the chairman of CEO of F1, added: “Formula 1 is a sport with a rich history. We want to preserve, protect and enhance that history by unleashing F1’s potential, by putting our fans at the heart of a more competitive and more exciting sport.

“We are driven by one desire: to create the world’s leading sporting brand. Fan-centred, commercially successful, profitable for our teams, and with technological innovation at its heart.”