Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

Pierre Gasly and Toro Rosso were a surprise eighth fastest on Friday - and even more of a surprise was that the Frenchman’s Honda-powered car was fastest through the speed trap. Obviously the team had trimmed it out to achieve that, but still… Gasly is already on his second of three permitted internal combustion engine, turbo and MGU-Hs this weekend after his engine failure in Melbourne.

The turbo and the MGU-H are upgraded - but Honda say there is no performance upgrade, only a reliability improvement. Gasly’s car was fitted with an aerodynamic upgrade that team-mate Brendon Hartley - struggling on Friday - did not have. It worked well, and both cars will have it on Saturday.

Image source, Getty Images

A big lock-up on the front left for Valtteri Bottas, but no harm done. Romain Grosjean also has a moment as he goes wide, but again nothing to get too worried about.

Image source, Getty Images

Jennifer Harris: Grid girls? Who needs them? And how arrogant of the Russians to assume their girls are the prettiest.

VinniethePanda‏: Re. Grid Girls...I'm OK with the pit lane girls holding the car numbers, its the girls who have to line up near the podium I object to.

Gordon Burrows‏: Grid girls / kids are pointless just someone taking up space on grid. No need for a sign with the driver name / number on grid.

Now we are getting going. Both Mercedes cars have set a time, with Valtteri Bottas the quickest man out there with a 1:30.781. Lewis Hamilton is less than two tenths of a second behind him in second position.

Image source, Getty Images

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

McLaren did not look great on Friday, Fernando Alonso down in ninth fastest. OK, he was only 0.5secs off the quickest Red Bull, McLaren’s target, but he was 1.4secs off the pace.

But dig a little deeper and his race pace looked impressive - only 0.1secs on average slower than Vettel on his long run on the same soft tyre. Admittedly, Vettel’s run was longer, and if you used only the laps of the German’s run that coincided with Alonso’s, the gap was 0.5secs. Still pretty good, though.

But which was the real picture? “The long run,” Alonso told yours truly when I grabbed a word later. “We hid our pace a little bit on the short run.” With more of the upgrade originally planned for Australia on the car this weekend, can McLaren begin to make good on their ambition to edge towards Red Bull by mid-season?

Image source, Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel is out on track, but not for long before a problem sends him back in.

He says: "A piece of the side pod is loose I will take it easy so it doesn't come off."

Vettel manages to get back safely home, but work for Ferrari to do.

Image source, Getty Images

Carlos Sainz comes up with the first time of the session with a 1:33.893. It will be beaten.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

Fastest on race pace on Friday was not Ferrari or Mercedes, but Red Bull, with both Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen setting an identical average a couple of 10ths quicker than Ferrari, who had a slight edge on Mercedes.

Track position will be their problem as they are unlikely to overcome the engine boosts Ferrari and Mercedes use in qualifying.

Image source, Getty Images

Fifteen minutes gone, no times set from anyone just yet.

Remember, the race starts at 16:10 BST tomorrow so it would not be totally representative of the conditions.

ShogunNoire: Hamilton gets punished for something that can't be helped, Raikkonen avoids a penalty for a loose wheel that can be avoided. How fair is that?

Rod Peel: When are we going to get rid of these draconian grid penalties?

Kayleigh‍: If the driver caused the need for a penalty, give them a grid drop by all means. If the team cause it, why punish the driver and ultimately the fans? In those situations, fine the team. Put the money into a little pot and donate it/do a comp with other teams/something else.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

Mercedes were under no illusion on Friday that they had work to do to dig out the kind of advantage they had in Australia two weeks ago - and that was even before they admitted to Hamilton’s gearbox problem.

"It looks very close between all the teams and we definitely have got some work to do to try and see if we can eke out to be ahead of the others,” Hamilton said.

Technical director James Allison added: “It wasn't our best day from a performance point of view. We've got more to do overnight and in the (practice) session on Saturday to give us a car that will allow us to have a good fight in Qualifying and on Sunday. The base is OK but we have not yet found the sort of edge that we had in Melbourne.”

So one hour of practice is just under way. Sebastian Vettel and Marcus Ericsson are the first to get out there.

The cameras focus on a super-chilled out Pierre Gasly in the Toro Rosso garage. He is working on his starts in the garage.

Not starts in the car, his starts as if he was a sprinter, pretending he is Usain Bolt.

So, lots and lots to talk about as the first cars head out on to the track.

We want your thoughts on...

Grid girls. Why are some race organisers trying to get them reinstated?

Grid penalties. Is Hamilton's five-place grid place penalty fair? Are grid penalties the answer? If not, what would be suitable penalties?

Get involved via the hashtag #bbcf1

The Monaco and Russian Grands Prix have indicated they will defy F1's decision not to use 'grid girls' at races.

Owners Liberty Media said in January it would stop using female models and replace them with 'grid kids'.

Monaco organiser Michel Boeri said his only "problem" with Liberty was "the grid-girl issue," adding: "They're pretty. The cameras will be on them."

Lewis Hamilton appeared to back the move with a post on his Instagram account, before deleting the image.

The world champion published a grab of a picture of some grid girls from another Instagram user with the message: "Thank you Jesus."

Image source, Lewis Hamilton

The track temperature is hotter than it has been at any stage this weekend. A sweltering 43 celsius.

Image source, Formula 1

BBC Radio 5 live sports extra

We are live on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra for full commentary of the third practice session.

Click on the play button at the top to listen along with Jack Nicholls and ex-Renault man Jolyon Palmer.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

Sebastian Vettel arrived in Bahrain claiming that Mercedes had an advantage over his Ferrari team of something in the order of 0.3-0.4secs a lap.

On Friday, though, it appeared the other way around, as the Ferraris demonstrated impressive pace on both short and long runs. All the leading cars had a messy session one way or another but the Ferrari’s better pace seemed clear - with Kimi Raikkonen, again the faster of the two drivers, fractionally ahead of Vettel and Hamilton about 0.4secs off even before he encountered Kevin Magnussen’s Haas resolutely refusing to get out of his way ay the final corner.

Vettel, still not that happy with the car’s balance, urged caution, though. “At this point, I wouldn’t draw any conclusions,” he said. "We focused ourselves on the set-up and tried to get a bit better feel, which at times was good, other times was not yet there so still some stuff to do. We tried some stuff mostly to try to fix the front end because it hasn’t been very strong in Australia and it has got a bit better. I think we can still improve for short and long runs and then we see.”

Image source, Getty Images

And these were the times from session two.

Image source, Formula 1

In case you missed the Formula 1 action yesterday, this is what happened in session one...

Image source, Formula 1

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

It was a blistering start from Norris, he pulled a massive lead in the opening laps and controlled the race from there. Norris will be in F1 before too long at this rate

A highly impressive debut Formula Two victory by McLaren protege Lando Norris.