Valtteri Bottas sixth, Zhou Guanyu seventh. It's their first race weekend for the team for both drivers with the team having a great-looking mix of experience and youth.

"Lap isn't great. Especially last sector we'll be missing quite a bit compared to the others."

But as soon as I finish that one, Max Verstappen is back on top with a 1:32.544.

For those wanting a close qualifying session later on, there's only 0.096 between Verstappen and Leclerc.

Twelve minutes to go. The current order - Leclerc, Russell, Verstappen, Sainz, Hamilton, Bottas, Zhou, Norris, Perez, Gasly, Magnussen, Schumacher, Albon, Latifi, Alonso, Ocon, Ricciardo, Stroll, Hulkenberg, Tsunoda.

But Mercedes spell at the top is quickly ended by the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc with an effort of 1:32.64.

On the softs, Mercedes now lead the way and it's George Russell at the top with a 1:32.935.

The track is improving all the time, but this is not looking to be as straight forward for Red Bull as it had appeared.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

McLaren left the first pre-season test in a good place, looking as if they had made a step forward over the winter. But the second was a rude awakening, afflicted by front-brake cooling problems, and their problems have continued at the first race.

Performance director Andrea Stella said the team had “made a step forward with our brake cooling, thanks to rapid work done at the factory to deliver new parts.” But the car did not look quick on either short runs or long. “We have a lot of pace to find if we want to be competitive with any of the guys in the top 10,” Lando Norris said.

What of McLaren? Lando Norris has gone on to the softs and is down in 14th, while Daniel Ricciardo, who missed all three days of testing last week because of a positive Covid-19 test, is down in 17th.

The only cars slower are both Aston Martins - Lance Stroll and Nico Hulkenberg - while Yuki Tsunoda has no time because of that hydraulic issue.

Ferrari had tweeted this just before Lewis Hamilton jumped ahead of both of them.

This is much more encouraging for Mercedes fans as Lewis Hamilton has massively improved and he's up to second, just 0.086 behind Max Verstappen.

Image source, Getty Images

"The fronts were gone after four corners."

Paul Duffield: The one consoling but equally frustrating element for Mercedes is that they have a race winning engine, but it took them until the last 4-5 races to get the best out of last years car, you wonder how long it could take this season with so much change.

Simon Baker: Based on the performance yesterday Verstappen is the driver to beat, but I hope it doesn't mean that he will dominate this season.

Sam Bird
Formula E driver on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra

Charles Leclerc is incredibly talented, extremely fast, but he does make just the odd little mistakes.

If he is going to go toe-to-toe with Verstappen, he's going to need to iron them out to make the season count as a whole.

1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 1:33.035
2. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.762
3. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) +1.113
4. Sergio Perez (Red Bull) +1.125
5. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) +1.221
6. Kevin Magnussen (Haas) +1.228
7. George Russell (Mercedes) +1.435
8. Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) +1.582
9. Mick Schumacher (Haas) +1.594
10. Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo) +2.283
11. Alexander Albon (Williams) +2.77
12. Nicholas Latifi (Williams) +2.926

All these top 12 have been on the softs.

"Still not feeling massively comfortable with the car. So much understeer Apex low speed."

Charles Leclerc spins, runs through some gravel and gets back on. That could have been a lot worse as he managed to keep it out of the wall.

No messing about from Max Verstappen who smashes it with his first lap. It's a time of 1:33.035, seven tenths better than anyone else so far and 1.2 seconds better than Lewis Hamilton down in fifth.

That Red Bull is going to take some stopping this weekend.

What can Pierre Gasly do today? He was the fastest man in the first practice session of the season yesterday.

Engineer: "Any porpoising on your side?"

Hulkenberg: "Nope, don't think so."