By alley - Nov 19, 2015, 3:01 AM ET

GP2: Rossi leads Vandoorne in Bahrain practice

Alexander Rossi led the way in free practice for the penultimate GP2 round of the season at Bahrain, alongside the World Endurance Championship.

Rossi, who has just completed his five-race stint with the Manor Formula 1 team, set his time of 1m41.180s inside the first 15 minutes, and times largely stayed the same for the balance of the session. He finished 0.033 seconds clear of champion-elect Stoffel Vandoorne, the McLaren protege recording a time of 1m41.213s.

Red Bull junior Pierre Gasly set the pace before Rossi and ended up third, with Vandoorne's ART teammate Nobuharu Matsushita fourth, within 0.073s of Rossi.

In a trouble-free start to the weekend – which is replacing the cancelled German Grand Prix slot – Sergey Sirotkin was fifth, ahead of Raffaele Marciello, Alex Lynn and Jordan King.

Returning from injuries sustained at Spa in August, Daniel De Jong was 21st fastest for Trident.

In at Rapax in place of Robert Visoiu, Gustav Malja was 22nd, one spot ahead of Formula Renault 3.5 champion Oliver Rowland making his third GP2 appearance and first with Status.

PRACTICE RESULTS:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Alexander Rossi	Racing Engineering	1m41.180ss	1m41.180s	18
2	Stoffel Vandoorne	ART Grand Prix	1m41.213ss	0.033s	18
3	Pierre Gasly	DAMS	1m41.230ss	0.050s	19
4	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	1m41.253ss	0.073s	18
5	Sergey Sirotkin	Rapax	1m41.345ss	0.165s	17
6	Raffaele Marciello	Trident	1m41.427ss	0.247s	18
7	Alex Lynn	DAMS	1m41.507ss	0.327s	19
8	Jordan King	Racing Engineering	1m41.529ss	0.349s	15
9	Arthur Pic	Campos Racing	1m41.535ss	0.355s	15
10	Rio Haryanto	Campos Racing	1m41.610ss	0.430s	16
11	Norman Nato	Arden International	1m41.688ss	0.508s	17
12	Rene Binder	MP Motorsport	1m41.729ss	0.549s	18
13	Sergio Canamasas	Daiko Team Lazarus	1m41.747ss	0.567s	16
14	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	1m41.849ss	0.669s	17
15	Mitch Evans	RUSSIAN TIME	1m41.943ss	0.763s	17
16	Marlon Stockinger	Status Grand Prix	1m42.006ss	0.826s	18
17	Nathanael Berthon	Daiko Team Lazarus	1m42.150ss	0.970s	17
18	Andre Negrao	Arden International	1m42.173ss	0.993s	14
19	Dean Stoneman	Carlin	1m42.453ss	1.273s	17
20	Nicholas Latifi	MP Motorsport	1m42.523ss	1.343s	17
21	Daniel de Jong	Trident	1m42.864ss	1.684s	17
22	Gustav Malja	Rapax	1m43.302ss	2.122s	17
23	Oliver Rowland	Status Grand Prix	1m43.342ss	2.162s	13
24	Sean Gelael	Carlin	1m44.400ss	3.220s	19