(photo credit: Flickr/tik_tok)

OUR FIRST CRASH!

Bianchi was driving during the morning session for Force India when he lost control and hit the tire barrier.

Damage was thankfully minimal, but it was enough to keep the team busy on repairs for the rest of the day. Nico Hulkenberg was set to drive in the afternoon and lost out on testing time.

Bianchi apologized for the accident, saying he was sorry for causing the team delay.

The test driver shouldn’t feel too bad, since he’ll also be driving in the Formula Renault 3.5 series.

Also it could be worse… HRT’s new car failed its crash test today. According to Autosport, the car failed two of the 17 tests and was unable to complete one of them due to failure of the lateral nose test.

Nico Rosberg was fastest in the 2011 Mercedes. Tomorrow will be Mercedes-less so we’ll get to look at all 2012 cars and see who’s fastest then.

In the 2012 cars, Romain Grosjean was fastest in the new Lotus. So far that’s looking to be an interesting car. Grosjean stopped on track at one point when he ran out of fuel, at least according to the team.

Oh testing, you’re such a fun time filled with suspicion and tricks.

Grosjean’s fastest time has been the fastest by a 2012-spec car all week: 1:18.419.

Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton were the next two fastest cars, but Grosjean’s time was even eight-tenths of a second faster than the best Vettel did.

Fernando Alonso had his first day in the new Ferrari, managing 7th. Ferrari do not seem to be too pleased with progress in the F2012 so far.

Bruno Senna completed 125 laps in the Williams RW34. Senna says the new car is a better car than Williams’ 2011 car. Not sure if that’s saying much, since running shoes would be a better car than Williams’ 2011 car.

And to round out a busy day, British politicians are pushing for the FIA to drop the Bahrain Grand Prix once again. There were reports today of a British man having his fingers chopped off after being attacked outside the capital city of Manama. You can read more about it here.