Welcome back to ESPNF1's live coverage of the Bahrain Grand Prix. It was something of a relief at the start of first practice when we could focus on the racing rather than what's happening off it, but in this session we are expecting events away from the circuit to have a direct affect on Force India's actions on it.

The team has confirmed that it is planning to limit its running - or possibly not run at all - in order to allow its staff to leave the circuit before it gets dark. There has been talk of more protests this evening in villages between the circuit and Manama, and after a petrol bomb landed close to one of the team's hire vans on Wednesday, it is keen to get all of its staff back in the hotel as early as possible.

Force India ran 26 laps on each car (52 in total) in the first session to gather as much data as possible and used the soft tyres, which are usually reserved for FP2. The cars have been stripped down since and there are suggestions they might just run installation laps on each car before the end of FP2 to make sure everything is fine. Then the team will be able to leave the circuit before it gets dark this evening.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton was fastest in the first session with a 1'33.572. McLaren is hoping the hot temperatures give its car an advantage this weekend, but tyre management will still be the key to Sunday's race with teams reporting severe rear degradation in FP1.

Force India aside, the teams will be making more tweaks to their cars over the next 90 minutes as the track conditions improve. One example is Kimi's engine engineer, who says: "Wind is turning from tail wind (P1) to head wind (P2) ... top gear choice will be crucial here!!!"

In China we saw a few drivers hit the rev limiter in the DRS zones, so the top gear ratio choice is always a tricky one.

Just to add to the Force India story mentioned below, the team says it is still committed to qualifying and the race, even though they are likely to be leaving later on Sunday. Deputy team principal said it was an emotional decision by the crew after what happened on Wednesday.

Images of the two Force India cars show they are being stripped right back so that the team can fit its race engine and gearbox. They don't look like they will be heading out any time soon if at all in this session.

Just minutes until the start of the session. The sun is still beating down in Bahrain with track temperatures at 40C and air temperature at 31C.

The session is underway with Karthikeyan heading out on the track first with medium tyres bolted to his HRT.

Karthikeyan is putting together a clean lap in his HRT. No dramas behind the steering wheel although its clear to see that his car lacks downforce compared to the front runners.

Karthikeyan sets a 1:41.710, which is some way off his best time from this morning and a long way off Hamilton's best. So clearly he wasn't pushing too hard.

Now Vergne is out on track to offer some entertainment.

Vegrne clocks a 1:36.661 but is immediately beaten by Maldonado on a 1:36.518.

All the cars on track are on the medium tyres right now. Button and Hamilton are among them in the McLarens.

Button makes a small lock-up and runs wide, Raikkonen and Vergne also making mistakes at turn eight. Vergne followed Raikkonen into the corner and made exactly the same mistake. Both ran wide and over the kerbing, but no obvious damage done.

Button has now gone fastest with a 1:34.500 ahead of Perez on a 1:35.525.

Hamilton is attacking the circuit with his DRS flapping open and shut in the high-speed switches of turn 11 and 12. He returns to the pits rather than set a time. A replay of his lap also shows that he had a considerable lock-up at turn eight. That might be the reason he returned to the pits.

Meanwhile, Button continues to pound round on track. He set the fastest middle sector on his last lap but was slower than his best overall.

Rosberg is warned over the radio that turn eight is a bit slippery. That's where we've seen the lock ups and cars running wide.

Schumacher clocks a 1:34.505 with the fastest final sector of this session. He's second, just 0.005s off Button.

Rosberg clocks a 1:35.250, significantly slower than team-mate Schumacher at this stage of the session. But they may well be running different fuel loads and programmes.

Webber sets a new fastest lap with a 1:34.366. That's still roughly 0.8s off Hamilton's morning time.

Schumacher sets a new fastest lap with a 1:34.329 to go faster than Rosberg. An onboard camera showed he used a healthy dose of his KERS out of turn 13 and down the penultimate straight.

But Vettel immediately shows what's possible in the current conditions with a 1:33.639. That's about a tenth off Hamilton's morning time.

But we still haven't seen anybody on track on the soft tyres so there is almost certainly more time to be found.

Pirelli adds: "Even at the beginning of this session, there are sections of the track that are still slippery..."

Maldonado is the first car to venture out on the soft tyres in this session. He'd followed by Ricciardo, Petrov, Kovalainen and Vergne on the quicker rubber.

Correction, Ricciardo is still on the mediums according to the TV pictures. Our data was telling us otherwise.

Ben asks: "The Red Bull's are seemingly fast here. That doesn't make sense to me as they have struggled for straight line speed so far this season. Can you explain?"

It's a fair point, but I'd like to start by saying we've yet to see fully representative lap times. The Red Bull is not the fastest car on the straights, but it wasn't last year either and it still won in Monza. The car may be quicker in these hotter conditions than it was in China where they struggled for traction in the low speed corners too. All will be revealed over the next two days.

Force India confirm it will miss the rest of this session: "For logistical reasons the team will run a rescheduled programme for the rest of the weekend, which will result in the team missing second practice to ensure the most competitive performance in FP3, qualifying and the race."

Hamilton is back out on track but still locking his front-right tyre into turn eight. He's now seventh fastest on a 1:34.708.

Hamilton says he wants to revert to the set-up he had in FP1. Clearly some changes they made over the break between sessions have not been working.

Vettel improves to a 1:33.525 on the soft tyres, which is only about a tenth faster than he managed on the mediums.

Rosberg shows that the Mercedes is quick over one lap this weeekend with a 1:32.816. That is by far the fastest time we've seen so far and over 0.7s quicker than second place Vettel.

The Mercedes does benefit from its double DRS at this circuit, but there's no doubt it's a fast car nonetheless. The main focus for them will be tyre degradation, but if they can nail the set-up like Rosberg did in China then they have to be a favourite this weekend.

Raikkonen's car threatens to swap ends on him in turn 13 but he responds with a large dose of opposite lock. The car's rear end stepped out under braking. Lotus is hoping to get its updates working this weekend after they struggled in China.

Webber has gone second fastest on a 1:33.262, but is still 0.446s off Rosberg.

Alonso is struggling out on track on the soft tyres and remains sixth fastest. Like Raikkonen, his car is keen to swap ends without giving the driver any notice.

Alonso is told that if his tyres become useless then he can try them on high fuel. But Alonso wants to remain out on low fuel to see what happens.

Button is also complaining of a lack of balance, but he's still on the mediums.

Hamilton and Button are the only drivers in the top 13 still running on the medium tyres. Button has completed 12 laps so far on his tyres and is complaining of a lack of grip, Hamilton has completed nine laps.

As we near the time of the start of the race on Sunday, Pirelli says: "Track temperature coming down slightly now: temperature is one of the biggest factors in tyre degradation."

Schumacher suffers with traffic on his soft tyre run and ends up 1.513s slower than his team-mate Rosberg at the moment.

Schumacher has another attempt on the soft tyres but it looks like his tyres are past their best as he sets a 1:33.862, 1.046s off his team-mate.

Webber told to keep his steering straighter through turn nine it will help with locking up into turn ten.

McLaren is leaving it later than most to set a soft tyre time. Possibly waiting for the track to cool off a touch.

As I type, Button heads out of the pit lane on a new set of soft tyres.

Webber is told that his KERS has failed. That happened a lot last year. He's told to move his brake balance rearwards to compensate. The KERS harvests energy from the rear axle under braking, so when it fails there is less resistance on the rear axle and therefore it requires more braking.

Pirelli tweets: "The front-left tyre works very hard here; with the most lateral energy going through it on the long turn 12. Also tough on rear tyres here"

Button struggles to improve by much on the soft tyres as he sets the fifth fastest time, 1.430s off Rosberg's soft tyre time.

Lotus: "Back to the track with a set of white marked mediums for Kimi"

Alistair asks: "What is it with Red Bull Racing KERS? Seems to fail much more than other teams, this must be a major concern?"

Red Bull has its own system (not the standard Magneti Marelli one offered by Renault with its engines) and it appears to be more temperamental. Adrian Newey is always keen to package things as tightly as possible, but that can lead to overheating problems. Although I should add that we don't know the exact reasons for today's failure.

Hamilton is out on soft tyres ... but can only manage a 1:33.747, which is slower than his time from the morning on medium tyres. He got slightly held up by Massa in the final sector but it wasn't a great lap regardless.

So, Hamilton's time puts him in fourth behind the Red Bulls and Rosberg. It's also worth mentioning that track temperature has dropped about 4C since the Mercedes set its time.

Neville says: "I just find the 'full load runs' a bit strange as the race pace is slower than even these runs. Perhaps they need to spend more time with the actual load in the car."

Alonso has switched back to the mediums after struggling on his softs.

Mike asks: "I cannot relate the turn numbers you quote in the commentary with the circuit map on your site. You have just written the Pirelli tweeted about the 'long turn 12' but turn 12 is a very short turn on the map. Please explain - are there really 23 turns?"

Sorry, that's our mistake. We still have the map of the longer circuit used for the race in 2010. This year Bahrain has reverted to the shorter layout originally used for the first race. We are trying to get our map updates as quickly as possible!

Siddesh asks: "Schumi still quite a way off Rosberg's fastest. Whatever Rosberg changed has made the difference. Why isn't Schumi aping his team-mate?"

Schumacher got stuck behind Kovalainen on his fast run earlier today. But it's true that he can't match Rosberg at the moment. In China he was 0.5s slower in qualifying and then roughly 0.6s slower than Rosberg in every race lap he took part in before his loose wheel problem. Clearly Rosberg has hit the sweetspot, but I wouldn't be surprised if Schumacher is closer tomorrow when he gets some clear air.

We're expecting the times to remain fairly static now as the drivers turn their attention to longer runs with more fuel.

Stephen asks: "The Toro Rosso does not seem to be going as well since the first GP in Melbourne. Is this just because some tracks suit and others don't?"

Most likely. Although they were helped by the safety car in Australia and then Malaysia was an odd race because of the weather. It may be that the car was slightly flattered by others' mistakes in the first two rounds and is not as quick as it seemed.

Mark asks: "What are the chances of Webber outqualifying Vettel in this race, that would be 4 in a row!"

I would say the chances are pretty high. Vettel has changed the exhaust system on his car again to fall in line with the system Webber favours and has been struggling to adapt his style to the car all season. However, this is Vettel we're talking about, so maybe three dry practice sessions ahead of qualifying will allow him to understand the RB8 a little better.

Ian says: "Hi, I find it strange that DRS can be used anywhere in practice and qualifying? To me it seems the teams are collecting false data as to actual race conditions. Secondly in qualifying the cars with the greater straight line speed are are getting an advantage they do not have in the race."

It's a very good point, but the use of the DRS does make qualifying a bit more exciting and can mean a car finds itself higher up the grid than it deserves in terms of race pace - that always makes for exciting racing.

At the moment Rosberg, Webber and Vettel are all out on medium tyres while Hamilton, Schumacher and Button continue on softs. None of them are showing the kind of pace to trouble Rosberg as they focus on how the tyres degrade on heavier fuel.

Billy says: "In response to Mike's question about the circuit map, if you go to the map of the circuit from the home page it is correct."

Thanks Billy! We were hoping to get it changed ASAP. We'll make sure all the maps are correct after the session. I've just checked the map tab on my browser and it is now correct.

Interesting tweets from Renault Sport: "The air is so dry and hot that the stress on the engine is very hard. In fact, you can get an engine to 'detonate' if it is not managed correctly. This is a very destructive phenomenon; basically it consists in an abnormal combustion of the air and the fuel in the engine. The propagation of the combustion flame is not under control, or predictable and cylinder pressure would reach destructive levels with subsequently massive stresses on the piston."

So keep an eye out for that later in the weekend...

John asks: "Why aren't the Force Indias venturing out?"

Force India have opted to prepare their cars for Saturday early so that they can get back to their hotel before dark (thus missing FP2). Some members of the teams have raised concerns after a petrol bomb landed close to one of their hire vans on Wednesday. Officially the team said: "For logistical reasons the team will run a rescheduled programme for the rest of the weekend, which will result in the team missing second practice to ensure the most competitive performance in FP3, qualifying and the race."

The session is coming to a close now as drivers complete their final laps. No change in the times as the drivers complete their heavy fuel runs.

Interesting times coming out of this session. Rosberg went comfortably fastest with the Red Bulls second and third. McLaren were off the pace on the soft tyres, with Hamilton slower than his morning times on mediums. But it's worth noting that track temperatures were 4C lower when the McLarens set their times (which was closer to the time that Q3 will take place) and therefore their laps are not directly comparable to Rosberg's.

Long run times seemed to be a lot more closely matched, but tyre degradation remains an issue for all teams. More will be revealed during tomorrow's qualifying session so make sure you join us for the session live. In the mean time we will continue to bring you the latest news and reaction from the teams and drivers.