Max Verstappen: "The practice sessions today were not perfect but we weren't too far off.

"The long runs were quite decent, and I think we can always do a little better on those laps. There were a few small balance issues that we will work on but I am quite happy with everything with the car overall. Today was just about trying to find that sweet spot and getting the perfect balance in the car. Performing well in qualifying is important, so we will make sure the car is in good shape ahead of tomorrow. I'm not too worried about the gap to P1 and we aren't looking too much at the others and are just focusing on ourselves at the moment. It's going to be very close in qualifying but we will try and work a bit more and fight for pole tomorrow."

Sergio Perez: "I think these sessions were key and very interesting, we have a plenty to explore on the car, that we didn't have the chance to during testing, so we are exploring it now with the mechanical balance here and there.

"The good thing is that whatever we do on performance runs seems to help the long runs. We just have one aim, which is to make a more balanced car and that will make things better for the race and qualifying. Today was as expected. We heard a lot of people saying that we were a second ahead after testing, which made me smile because I knew things would be a lot closer. It is looking very competitive across the grid, and it is going to be tight on Friday night in quali."

Check out our Thursday gallery from Bahrain here.