While there is no official lunch break in Bahrain, as the majority of teams headed off for a quick midday break, Williams Valtteri Bottas sneaked in a 1:37.635 to depose Fernando Alonso at the top of the timesheets.

A fairly busy morning has been punctuated by no less than three red flags, two of them down to Nico Rosberg.

Yesterday's pace-setter Nico Hulkenberg continues to look strong as does Fernando Alonso who has concentrated on shorter runs as his team continue to 'discover' the F14 T.

Red Bull continues to be the focus of media attention, however, with 34 laps to his tally - just one lap short of the entire number of laps the Austrian team had completed over the five previous days of testing - Sebastian Vettel is finally able to get down to some serious lappery even if he currently remains almost 3s off the pace. Furthermore, it should be noted that the German has concentrated on short runs indicating the team still has concerns.

Following a frustrating day on Wednesday, Williams and Toro Rosso both appear to have resolved their issues overnight both leading the way in terms of laps completed. That said, Jean-Eric Vergne was the cause of a red flag when he stopped out on track late in the morning.

On the other hand "gremlins" are causing Caterham problems but the Anglo-Malaysian outfit insists that a "fix is in place".

After a strong day yesterday, McLaren has had problems this morning, Kevin Magnussen only completing 8 laps, while Lotus clearly still has issues with Romain Grosjean limited to just 15 laps.

Midday Times - All Times Unofficial

Name	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
Bottas	Williams	50	1:37.635	123.999 mph
Alonso	Ferrari	40	1:37.700	0.065
Hulkenberg	Force India	24	1:38.394	0.759
Magnussen	McLaren	8	1:39.958	2.323
Vettel	Red Bull	34	1:40.540	2.905
Vergne	Toro Rosso	53	1:40.609	2.974
Rosberg	Mercedes	34	1:40.932	3.297
Gutierrez	Sauber	43	1:41.135	3.500
Grosjean	Lotus	15	1:41.670	4.035
Chilton	Marussia	14	1:42.511	4.876
Kobayashi	Caterham	18	1:54.059	16.424