The Etihad Aldar Spyker Formula One Team left its difficult Malaysian weekend behind today with two promising free practice sessions at the Bahrain International Circuit. Over a very competitive day, in which just two seconds covered the top 20 times, the team demonstrated it had moved forward with its new aero package and finished the sessions with Adrian Sutil and Christijan Albers just over a second from the top 10.

Adrian continued to impress with his ability to quickly learn circuits. Despite this being his first-ever trip to the track, the young German recorded a 1:37.084 lap in the first session, the 21st fastest time, and improved in the second to claim the 19th quickest lap of the field.

Christijan Albers continued to work on the balance of his F8-VII throughout the day. The first session was hard-going for the Dutchman as he recorded the slowest time of the field, however he bettered this lap by two seconds in the afternoon session to post a 1:35.835, the 21st fastest time.

The team will now continue its development tomorrow in the final one hour practice session before Qualifying starts at 14:00 local time.

Adrian Sutil: 'It was a good first day in Bahrain. I like the track with its long straights and hard braking down into tight corners. I think our car suits it very well; it's important to have a quick car with good traction. I'm quite happy with my balance, it's much better than in Malaysia and the gap to the front is not that big.'

Christijan Albers: 'I felt happier in the second session with the balance of the car; it felt better when there is more rubber on the track. We're getting closer to finding a reasonable set-up, we've still got a lot of work to do, but I know we will be ready for tomorrow.'

Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer: 'I think we can be very pleased with the performance we've shown here today, especially as we hadn't been here in either of the pre-season tests. It was pretty productive - we spent the day evaluating the hard and medium Bridgestone Potenza tyres that we haven't run here before, running the softer tyre in the afternoon. Overall we're very happy with the progress today; the car is clearly working a lot better here than in Malaysia. We had a clear direction in set-up we carried over from last weekend, it's proved to be the right one and I hope the improvement can continue over the weekend.'

To check out our Bahrain free practice gallery, click here