While conditions were almost ideal, with sunshine and just a few gusting winds in the afternoon, it was the numerous red flags - as opposed to the weather - which restricted running.

Red Bull's programme included a race weekend simulation within one day, as the Milton Keynes outfit ran through procedures for P3, qualifying and a race. The Australian completed 109 laps in total, the only hiccough being a technical problem which caused the RB6 to stop out on track in the middle of the simulated race.

"We had a pretty good day," said Webber. "We did some simulations and performance items in the morning and a race simulation in the afternoon. We had a precautionary stop in the middle of the race simulation because of a gearbox oil alarm, but the guys got the car turned around pretty quickly and we finished the session, so it wasn't too bad."

"Today was always planned as a race weekend simulation day," added Ian Morgan, the team's head of race engineering, so we did some testing along with P3 and qualifying in the morning and a race simulation in the afternoon. Everything went very well up until halfway through the race simulation, when something in the data made us decide to stop the car on track. It was nothing major though and we got the car repaired and back out until the end of the session. It went well today, apart from that small reliability issue."

For Williams, Nico Hulkenberg spent the day working on set-up, long runs and systems checks, like cooling. He also did some aero testing. Tomorrow, the German will drive Chassis 02 and continue working through the Grove outfit's programme.

"We had a good day," said the German. "I did quite a lot of laps on different set-ups so we can continue to learn how the car will react. It’s my last day tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to getting lots of laps in to be in the best possible shape for Bahrain."

Nico Rosberg kicked off the programme for Mercedes, the German spending much of the day focusing on set-up work with the car over longer runs alongside working on the team's race weekend procedures including qualifying and pit stop simulations.

"We had a productive day today," said the German, "and we were able to learn a great deal from doing so many laps. We're making good use of the testing time that we have and I'm feeling quite confident and comfortable in the car. Aerodynamically the car will change quite significantly for the first race in Bahrain so we're not focusing on the details but on general set-up work and seeing how the car behaves over long runs. Working through the race weekend procedures and pit stops is also very useful in our preparations for Bahrain."

Pedro de la Rosa was at the wheel Sauber, as the Swiss team focussed on set-up work. The Spaniard, driving on his home track, completed 73 laps on his way to posting the fourth best time of the day.

"We did an aero test for Bahrain and were trying to get the car's balance right for this circuit, which is a demanding track with lots of bumps," said de la Rosa. "I think we learned a lot today and are looking forward to tomorrow."

"Today we have been concentrating on different mechanical set-ups and different downforce levels in preparation for the Bahrain Grand Prix," added Willy Ramp. "We are not satisfied with the car's balance yet, but we have recorded a great deal of useful data which will help us further improve it."