Lewis Hamilton suffered a major crash to compound a miserable day in Bahrain as Ferrari pair Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen dominated Friday practice.

The Briton ran off the track and into a barrier during the second session but was unharmed ahead of Sunday's race.

The 23-year-old finished both sessions as fourth fastest, over a second and a half down on his rivals' lap times.

Massa was quickest, posting a lap of one minute, 31.420 seconds, with team-mate Raikkonen a close second.

Hamilton's crash into a tyre wall occurred with just over nine minutes of the second practice session at the Sakhir circuit remaining.

The current world championship leader appeared to lose traction coming out of a series of swift turns, which led to him locking up and sliding across a run-off area and into the barrier with considerable force.

After a few moments to compose himself, Hamilton emerged from his badly damaged car apparently unharmed.

He was then taken back to the McLaren garage on the back of a motorbike, while his car was craned onto the back of a truck and returned to the pits for repairs.

"I made a mistake. I got caught out by the kerb and it spun me around - that kerb it is quite spiteful," said the Briton, who suffered severely bruised ribs after ploughing nose first into a tyre wall at the Nurburgring in qualifying for last year's European Grand Prix.

"If you hit the wrong part of it is spits you off because the barrier is quite close to the side of the track. That's racing. It won't happen again.

"There is no impact on the weekend. There are no bruises to report from me and we completed most of the session, making some good steps forward.

"Ferrari look very quick, but you don't know what fuel loads they are on. I'm hoping that fuel corrected it is a lot closer than things seem.

"Ferrari did a good job in the last race but we just have to focus on our own work. Pace-wise I feel quite comfortable and we saw from Malaysia that we have the pace to run with them in the race."

Brazilian Massa will hope to continue his fine form over the weekend after failing to score any points in the first two races.

"I like the track, I always go very well here," Massa, who won from pole to flag here last year, said.

"Hopefully I can say the same thing on Sunday. I think, considering that I still have zero points, a podium will definitely be a good result.

"But sure if we can fight for a win and bring 10 points home it will be better. Let's just get the best weekend we can.

"For sure it will be quite competitive, me and Kimi like always, and we need to look forward that we started in the right direction and the base looks good for the weekend." 

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