Pierre Gasly in the Toro Rosso is complaining of a power issue. However, he is sixth quickest so far, in what would be a very enjoyable day so far for his team.

There is a bit of loose tape at the rear of Hamilton so he may well be coming in to get that checked out soon.

Nevertheless, he is still out there, on the soft tyres, and is only eight thousandths of a second off his best time.

Hamilton has just trimmed his time down to 1:32.532, almost five tenths quicker than Bottas.

Only Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz have not set a time so far this morning. That means Lewis Hamilton has come up with a time, and he jumps straight over everyone else to the top.

One minute 33.041 seconds is the Brit's time. It is a Mercedes one two at the moment, with Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel third and fifth respectively with McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne the meat in the Ferrari sandwich in fourth.

Lance Stroll makes a mess of his latest lap, spinning around to face the wrong way. But not much damage done to man or machine and he is back on his way again.

"I had too much oversteer and I spun," says the 19-year-old.

And just wait. It is catching. In exactly the same spot, Charles Leclerc in the Sauber spins around. Again not much harm done except to his pride.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

Haas were one of the talking points of the first race of the season - for both their impressive pace in qualifying sixth and seventh, and the way they lost fourth and fifth places in the race to two pit stop errors.

They have shuffled their mechanics for this race in an attempt to take the pressure off those who made errors, and Romain Grosjean is hopeful of another strong weekend. “Of course we are frustrated by the way the race ended up,” he said. “It was tough on everyone. But we come here ready to focus on what we can do on our side, do our best job on the car, see how it goes on the track which is different from what we have experienced so far.”

He said Haas had hopes that they could stay closer to the front throughout the year than they managed after a similarly bright start last season. “The first thing is the baseline is better than last year,” he said.

“That gives us hope - the car. I think the development rate will be higher than in previous years, and mainly the human power behind the team is bigger. We have more people ands a bigger group of engineering. Sometimes last year we had an OK car we did not exploit well, other times we had a not OK car that we exploited well. We just have to make sure we are in that region where we get it right.”

Image source, Getty Images

Valtteri Bottas, on the softs, is now the man at the top with a 1:33.235. The Ferrari duo of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel, on the mediums, are second and third respectively. No time as of yet from world champion Lewis Hamilton.

Fox Hat‏: Improve F1 by making it available for fans to watch instead of limiting it to subscriber-only channels.

Si‏: What I would do #bbcf1, external get rid of #horriblehalo, external simplify wings on cars but allow ground effects so cars can follow closer. Get rid of penalties that are out of control and budget cap all teams. No more screens in the pits hiding the cars and make the drivers the stars.

Robert Brown: I’m probably in the minority. But I like the current hybrid cars. It’s got me more interested in their engineering. The aero just needs to tweaked to reduce turbulence for car behind. Would love an autonomous F1 car support race though.

Paul‏: Allowing DRS all the time could help as it would increase driver errors and reward the brave.

Daniel Ricciardo, on the medium tyres, is momentarily the quickest out there, bolting down a lap of 1:34.333, but just then Kimi Raikkonen jumps to the top with a 1:33.770.

Esteban Ocon (third), Lance Stroll (fourth), Sergio Perez (fifth), Sergey Sirotkin (sixth) and Brendon Hartley (seventh) the only other ones to set a time.

How about this for a picture? What every Formula 1 driver needs, a briefcase. Just what would be in that briefcase. A way of Sebastian Vettel bringing in his lunch? Maybe.

Image source, Getty Images

Sergio Perez, on the softs, is the fastest man so far with a lap of 1:35.191. He is just quicker than Daniel Ricciardo, as he looks to put some smiles on the Red Bull faces after the early problems for Max Verstappen.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

Valtteri Bottas had a first race to forget in Melbourne two weeks ago, a big crash in qualifying consigning him to the back end of the grid and a difficult fight back to only eighth place.

The pressure is surely on the Finn to up his game this weekend, especially given that he knows his first half-season will be decisive in whether he gets a third year at Mercedes. But he insists it is business as usual.

“It’s a normal race weekend,” he said. “That’s my feeling at the moment, honestly. Sometimes you have bad races and then there’s always the next one and of course you always want to perform but there is no point in gathering pressure from one mistake in qualifying. Of course, I always hope for a good weekend but yeah, I feel a normal race weekend ahead.”

Image source, EPA

Darrell Kerrison‏: Remove the Ferrari veto. As long as that's in place any changes that could even the field, reduce spending or lead to a fairer distribution of prize money will be blocked.

ShogunNoire: I think Liberty Media's proposals are precisely what F1 needs to stay interesting. They absolutely need to put their foot down with Mercedes and Ferrari.

Owen Edmonds: Two points for qualifying first. The reverse qualifying order for the race. Or make qualifying a short race with 5,4,3,2,1 points and then reverse order for race.

RobotoRuby: No mandatory tyre changes so you aren't racing against your own tyres, refueling to add a bit of spice. No budget caps, let the top teams fight it out. No one is particularly interested in the back markers.

Jolyon Palmer
Former Renault driver on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra

This is a solid workout for Verstappen, this is 30 degrees out there. He is still in his full overalls, he will be getting a sweat on. When you turn up to a race this is just what you do not want to happen. You want to get a feel for the car.

Maybe they will get his car running before the end of the session.

Verstappen could not even make it back to the garage. What an absolutely terrible start for Red Bull. He has to climb out of the car, which has been parked by the side of the track not too far away from the pits, but he could not even make it home.

He is now pushing his own car back into the pitlane.

Image source, Getty Images

Early problems for Max Verstappen. He is absolutely crawling along at about 20mph. "Mode one and box" is the appeal from the Red Bull garage.

"I'm running out of speed, it is not accelerating," says the Dutchman.

The stats suggest this could well be a good weekend for Ferrari. Five times they have won this race, which has only been held yearly since 2004, apart from in 2011 when it was cancelled.

Image source, .

We are under way and already loads of cars are heading straight out on to the track. The medium tyres are the early weapon of choice.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

Sebastian Vettel believes he has a fight on his hands this season - much more so than last year - if he and Ferrari are to beat Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes to the world title.

“Last year we had a very competitive car right from the beginning and the balance was quite nice right from the start,” he said on Thursday. “This year we have a better car but we have to get it to work. It is not a big drama.”

How much “not a big drama is it”? Well, quite big, actually, if Vettel is to be believed. “It is very clear Mercedes is the fastest, by a 0.3-0.4secs gap,” the German said. “That is also what we saw in the race. Lewis was controlling his pace in the beginning and then pushed when he had to. he had time in hand. Ultimately, we need to have pace to win. I am confident we can improve.

"The car has potential but we need to make progress and catch up quickly to be there and fight for wins just the way we did in many races last year.” Hamilton disagrees. He admits his engineers have told him “pace-wise we have a slight edge on them”. But he also said: “We’re just as close as we were last year.” And last year, as his team-meet Valtteri Bottas pointed out, Ferrari won here.

Image source, Getty Images

We are live on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra as well right now so listen to Jack Nicholls and ex-Renault man Jolyon Palmer by pressing the play button at the top.