Renault Sport Formula One Team enjoyed a productive first day on track at Sakhir in preparation for the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix. Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer carried out the team's full programme behind the wheel of the R.S.16 with a total of 124 laps completed.

Both drivers carried out extensive front wing configurations tests in FP1. Tyre evaluation was the main focus in FP2. Pirelli's soft (yellow) compound tyres were used in FP1; soft and supersoft (red) tyres we used in FP2.

Kevin Magnussen: "We got through all of today's programme and logged plenty of running so it's been a good day and I'm happy. We'll work hard this evening to analyse all our data as usual and see if we can find more pace as we're not yet as strong as we were in Melbourne relative to our rivals. It'll be interesting to see what the weather does as well; today's temperatures did have an effect on the tyres. We've seen rain this week so let's see what happens tomorrow."

Jolyon Palmer: "It was good to get a full day of running on a Friday after the rain we had in Melbourne. There was a big difference in temperatures between both practice sessions, and with the circuit becoming less sandy and more rubber getting down, the track evolution was significant. We got a decent number of laps in today and there's plenty to get on with overnight; there's still more to come."

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: "Both cars ran very reliably today, and we were able to make up for the weather-affected practice sessions in Australia in terms of assessing our new front wing. We've seen unusual cool temperatures so far this weekend with significant temperature differences between Free Practice 1 and Free Practice 2 and it was interesting for the team to evaluate tyre performances today. Both drivers did a solid job on track and back in the garage providing valuable feedback. We will now focus on analysing today's data overnight to extract the maximum performance from the R.S.16 which we would like to improve in time for tomorrow's qualifying sessions."

Check out our Friday gallery, here.