The supersoft tyre, around 0.6 seconds faster than the soft, was quickest in FP2 today; with Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen just ahead of his team mate Sebastian Vettel.

The soft was fastest in FP1 courtesy of Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo but the FP2 session was the crucial one: with track temperatures falling in the evening, as they will during qualifying and the race, which is run at the same time.

All three compounds performed strongly today, making each one a viable option as part of a race strategy.

Mario Isola: We're satisfied with the performance of all three compounds so far, on a track that distinguishes itself by having the roughest surface of the year, with an unusual situation in qualifying and the race as track temperatures fall in the evening. This makes wear, degradation, and consequently strategy quite hard to predict, with all the key work having to be condensed into the 90 minutes of FP2. There's a reasonable gap between medium and soft as we expected, but the gap between supersoft and soft is slightly bigger than we initially predicted, so this could lead to some interesting tactics during qualifying tomorrow as teams start to commit towards a race strategy. From what we can see so far, there are a number of different strategic possibilities on the table for qualifying and the race.

Check out our Friday gallery from Bahrain, here.