Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg topped the time charts in the final practice session ahead of qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix, while Russia’s Vitaly Petrov was 20th-fastest in his Caterham.
Rosberg, who won last week’s race in Shanghai, was fastest in Friday’s second session and continued his good pace to post the quickest time of one minute 33.254 seconds.
That was one-and-a-half tenths of a second faster than reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel.
Vettel’s Red Bull teammate Mark Webber was third-fastest, followed by McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Rosberg’s teammate Michael Schumacher in fifth.
Petrov set a time of one minute 36.532 seconds, almost a second slower than Heikki Kovalainen in the other Caterham, who was 18th-fastest, beating Nico Hulkenberg of the more established Force India team.
Petrov’s pace had been affected after he damaged the car’s floor, Caterham technical director Mike Gascoyne said.
“Vitaly damaged his floor on the first run which couldn't be changed, Heikki not looking too bad,” he said on Twitter.
The Russian-owned Marussia team’s drivers were 21st and 22nd, with rookie Charles Pic beating his more experienced teammate Timo Glock with a time of one minute 37.267 seconds.
The team conceded that they were still some way off the pace of the teams above them, but that neither driver’s lap time had shown the car’s true pace.
“We've got some work to do on the gap, but achieved what we needed to. Neither driver had a clean lap so we keep pushing for Qualy,” Marussia said on Twitter.
All teams ran in the session, unlike Friday’s second practice, when Force India opted not to run in order to reach their hotel before dark, after team members had been caught in civil unrest in Bahrain the day before.
Tens of thousands of people marched in a protest against the ruling monarchy in the Bahraini capital of Manama on Friday, with many calling for Sunday’s race to be cancelled.
