Igor Tudor spoke on the eve of the game against Lecce: “The group is fine, they have worked well. It&#8217s a bit of a short week, because we play immediately on Sunday and Saturday and it was different from the week before. We worked on everything though, coming from a fair, serious and good game. You can still see a little more confidence and more taste to do those things and confirm the things we did well and work on the aspects where we can still grow”.

“You work on everyone from a tactical point of view, but also on the head.Here every match has to be approached like a final. Every match and every practice has to be done at 100 percent. Tomorrow will be a super difficult competition and you are always playing against yourself. Everyone has to give his or her best to get to victory, and only in this way do we grow together”.

“I am not looking back. I am happy because I have found good-looking, clean-cut boys who have a desire to do. Their response surprised me positively”.

Saying about Capello&#8220s phrases: “I don&#8220t read anything. Capello I admire, I had him as a coach and he taught me a lot. I can say that I work with serious people. Conceiçao is a player I like a lot, he is strong, he can solve the race. I told him and the others who play less that I am sorry, but we only have one match a week. I told them to give me a hard time, they are all important. The two strikers are both strong, when we find some’ more balance I would like to see them together, it can be done”.

During the day, Mathieu Van der Poel reconnoitred the cobbled sections of the Paris-Roubaix classic scheduled for Sunday, but there remains some concern about his health.

Last Sunday, shortly after the conclusion of the Tour of Flanders in which he placed third, the former world champion revealed that he had been ill for three days, and therefore did not have an ideal approach to the ‘Ronde’. According to his sports director at Alpecin-Deceuninck, Christoph Roodhooft, the ’Dutchman“is not yet fully recovered”.

“Mathieu has been staying in Belgium and training normally, but his recovery is still not optimal – Roodhooft told, newspaper ‘Het Nieuwsblad’ -. This is probably also due to the strain of the Tour of Flanders. If you have just been sick, you feel the fatigue longer. But anyway, Sunday is Roubaix, and for him there will be a new chance”.

It was Lando Norris in the McLaren the fastest in the first free practice session of the Bahrain Gra Pemio on the Sakhir circuit.

The Briton, on a very difficult asphalt and very different from that found in pre-season testing and in a session held in scorching heat, lapped in 1’33″204, 238 thousandths ahead of Alpine’s Frenchman Pierre Gasly.

Third at 596 thousandths Lewis Hamilton in the Ferrari, fourth the Williams of Alexander Albon, fifth the French Haas Esteban Ocon, sixth the German Kick Sauber Nico Hulkenberg.

Well six rookies on the trackm including Ferrari Academy Swede Dino Beganovic, who finished 14th and took the track in place of Charles Leclerc. Later the second free practice session.