What happened in Friday practice at the F1 2023 Bahrain GP

We're building up to second practice which gets underway at 3pm UK time.

Perez, Alonso, Verstappen, Norris, Leclerc, Stroll, Magnussen, Zhou and Hamilton.

The Canadian is 1.5s off the pace, but not a bad lap considering he missed all of testing.

Hype, hype, hype!

Alonso is only 0.4s off in second.

Perez, Verstappen, Norris, Leclerc, Zhou, Bottas, Alonso, Piastri, Hamilton and Tsunoda.

A solid lap form Norris given McLaren's testing struggles - 1.4s off Perez.

A scary moment for Sainz into Turn 9 but he keeps it out of the barrier.

Making use of the softs, the Finn goes third-fastest, 1.9s off Perez's impressive benchmark.

He's back out there after an ignition issue kept him in the garage.

Perez, Verstappen, Alonso, Piastri, Hamilton, Magnussen, Gasly, Hulkenberg, Leclerc and Russell.

A big improvement from the Mexican as he sets a 1m32.758s, 0.6s ahead of Verstappen - both on the softs.

Lance completes his first laps in the AMR23, but he’s had to return to the garage for the team to investigate an issue with the ignition. #BahrainGPpic.twitter.com/ItbZSUmY9L

— Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1) March 3, 2023

Perez, Verstappen and Gasly are now out there on the softs. Expect some quick times.

He cuts the gap to Perez down to 0.6s.

The seven-time champion breaks into the top three with a 1m35.164s, 0.8s off Perez.

A tidy lap from the Dane to slot into third on the softs, a second shy of Perez.

Perez, Alonso, Verstappen, Hamilton, Gasly, Leclerc, Russell, Sargeant. Sainz, Albon and Piastri.

Russell goes sixth for Mercedes with a 1m36.083s. The early running is being done on the yellow-marked mediums.

He's 0.6s off Hamilton at this early stage.