It's all a bit noisy in the Red Bull garage.

Getting some more times in now and both Ferraris go ahead of Lewis Hamilton. Charles Leclerc with a 1:33.797 and that's 0.459 faster than Hamilton.

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.

Paul Lyon: My prediction for the season - Max = WDC (strongest car + driver), Ferrari as constructors champs, as strongest pairing

Lewis Hamilton, on the softs, is the first of the big-hitters to set a time, and it's a 1:34.256.

Engineer: "The wind direction is similar to P2, a little bit gustier."

It's the hardest three compounds in the Pirelli range for the drivers to play with this weekend.

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

It looks like the hard compound tyre is really really difficult to wake up.

The first couple laps its like you're sliding on ice. How's that going to work in the race condition? Is it a useable tyre in a race condition here at night?

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

Kevin Magnussen feels a little like he’s living in a fairytale. A month ago, he had no thoughts about coming back to Formula 1 and didn’t believe it was something he wanted. Then Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, Nikita Mazepin’s career imploded, Haas phoned up Magnussen and he surprised himself by saying yes immediately. Now back in his old team, the Dane finds himself in what looks like a decently competitive car.

“I can’t believe what is even going on,” he said after practice on Friday. “It is so cool, man. Surreal. So I feel very lucky. The car has been feeling good all day again, like last week. The long run was what I was really encouraged by. The car just felt so consistent and lap times were really strong.

“At this point I still feel like I don’t know where people are, especially when you look at long-run pace. It is very up and down, even between team-mates, so let’s see. So far we are feeling good and we are happy and with a good car. So I am excited.”

After almost ten minutes we only have times on the board from the two Alfa Romeos, with Valtteri Bottas faster than Zhou Guanyu.

It's a big day for the 22-year-old Chinese driver as he will be taking part in his first ever Formula 1 qualifying session later on.

Image source, Getty Images

And this is why...

The big news before the race weekend started was Sebastian Vettel testing positive for Covid-19.

That means he has to sit out this weekend, with Nico Hulkenberg replacing him in the Aston Martin.

Hulkenberg last raced in 2020, making three appearances when he replaced Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll, both of whom missed races because of coronavirus.

Nico Hulkenberg, Formula 1's super sub, is again in action this weekend...

An early slide from Valtteri Bottas and yesterday was a mixed day for the Finn, now in the Alfa Romeo.

He didn't set a time in the first session and was then sixth fastest in the second - better than his former team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Benn Berrigan: I'm hoping @LewisHamilton, external will find some qualy magic. If not (as a Merc & McLaren fan) I will be firmly rooting for a Ferrari pole and win...never thought I'd say that. Ferrari is looking good, with maybe the best driver pairing.

Laura DS: Really hoping Mercedes have managed to solve their porpoising problem otherwise it's going to be a long painful quali and race for the boys!

And here we go. We have the fun of qualifying later on but before that it's time for the third practice session of the weekend.

Dry and gusty in Bahrain.

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra

We have commentary of third practice right now on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra.

You can also press the play button at the top of the page to listen to our team this weekend of Jack Nicholls, Formula E driver Sam Bird, Jennie Gow and Andrew Benson.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Bahrain

Mercedes have been saying for a while that they are not on the pace. Their rivals - Red Bull and Ferrari - didn’t believe them and felt they were hiding their true performance. But the evidence of Friday is that Mercedes were telling the truth. The car was a handful, and it was suffering badly with porpoising on the straights - where the under-car aerodynamics stall and reattach setting up a high-frequency bouncing. George Russell was fourth fastest but half a second off the pace.

“It appears as if it is going to be a longer term fix,” said Lewis Hamilton, who was ninth but lost in the region of 0.5-0.6secs because his DRS overtaking aid was not working. “It’s the balance and the bouncing and the loss of downforce we have compared to others. We are a long way off. We’re not bluffing like people assumed we were. It is what it is. We will work as hard as we can through it and do what we can.

“I am just realistic. We are not going to be in the race for a win here. The Red Bulls are a long way ahead, it is in the region of 0.8-0.9secs ahead of us and Ferrari are something like 0.6secs ahead of us. We are fighting with whoever is behind them.”

Here's some reaction from Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, with Ferrari second and third in both sessions yesterday and genuine pole position challengers today.

As always you have a massive role to play in this page so send us all your F1-related thoughts, observations, predictions and jokes by tweeting us using #bbcf1.

Max Verstappen, the current world champion, is very much the man to beat this weekend and he's looking in great form.