Third and fourth in FP1, Ferrari turned up the wick when it mattered, in FP2, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel leaving both Mercedes over 05s in their wake.

However, still coming to terms with the proposals put forward by FOM for the sport's future, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff insists he was not unduly worried by the Italian team's initial pace.

"They were in a pretty high-power mode when they were on the lap, so it isn't so worrying, but it is a good lap," he told Sky Sports. "And what we have seen in Melbourne and again here is that at various stages the teams are close together, so I can't really judge."

Asked how he could be so sure they were using such a mode, he smiled and said: "It's quite amazing. We have GPS data, so you can follow the traces of every car. You can see that when you overlay the data, suddenly on the straights they gain much more time, and in the corners it's still the same.

"You can see that in detail," he continued, "so it's become very transparent for the engineers how much somebody has turned up the power, and how much downforce, and how much drag everyone is running."

Despite the Austrian's claim the fact is that Lewis Hamilton, in particular, had a scrappy day, his caused not helped by a subsequent grid penalty after Mercedes opted to change his gearbox having revealed that he suffered an issue in Melbourne which almost brought about his retirement from the race.

Check out our Friday gallery from Bahrain, here.