KICK Sauber F1 Team had a productive first day of on-track action at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, as the team worked through two practice sessions in consistent conditions.

Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, on their C44s, produced solid mileage to allow the team to gather a wide range of data and information - a crucial passage, especially as the team continues to introduce new upgrades.

With positive first indications from the track, the team's engineers will crunch data overnight to extract more performance from the package, ahead of an important qualifying session tomorrow.

Valtteri Bottas: "Overall, it's been a decent day in the office. We had two good, productive sessions, during which we tested different setups - ultimately finding one that allowed us to unlock some extra lap time throughout the day. Performance-wise, it seems like we are in a better place compared to the most recent events, which is without doubt a positive, and gives us confidence for the weekend ahead. The new bits we have on our car ran smoothly after a few small hiccups that we promptly fixed, and actually allowed us to make a step forward already in the second practice session, which is good. Obviously, it will be once again down to fine margins, so it'll be important to go through the data we've gathered today, and extract everything we can from our car ahead of tomorrow's qualifying."

Zhou Guanyu: "Today has been quite a promising day. We introduced a different spec of rear wing and, while I haven't tried it yet on my car, Valtteri's performance looked quite strong, which is giving me a good feeling for tomorrow. My lap felt good, overall: I encountered a lot of traffic in the last corner, but otherwise, I reckon that my time could have been close to the top 10. I'm happy to see that some performance is back - and so is my confidence. Before coming to Spain, we changed a lot of things including the chassis. The team has done a great job and I feel like I am back to where I was earlier this season. While it's too early to talk about qualifying and the race, we definitely look to be more in the mix, especially compared to previous races. Today was about collecting lots of data and insights and we were successful in doing so - now we shift our focus on getting everything right for qualifying to secure a good position on the grid."

Check out our Friday gallery from Barcelona here.