Bahrain GP: Lewis Hamilton completes practice sweep for Mercedes

The Briton, who was fastest in both Friday sessions at the Sakhir circuit, headed his team-mate Nico Rosberg by 0.115 seconds.

They finished ahead of Sergio Perez, who was half a second adrift of Hamilton's best lap, but the pace of the Force India indicates that it is looking good for a strong qualifying performance later on Saturday.

Valtteri Bottas was fourth fastest in his Williams ahead of his team-mate Felipe Massa.

Like Friday, Williams chose to save mileage by sitting out much of the practice period. But when both they first appeared on the medium compound tyre they were the second fastest runners behind the Mercedes pair at the mid-way stage of the hour.

Sebastian Vettel sat out the final 20 minutes of the session after he spun his Red Bull off the track. The world champion seemingly lost control of his car on the exit of Turn 2 and looped his car around into the gravel trap. He had only completed eight laps when he spun off.

Jenson Button was sixth fastest in his McLaren, just ahead of Fernando Alonso's Ferrari and the other Force India of Nico Hulkenberg.

Hamilton was the first of the frontrunners to head the timesheets, putting in a 1m37.340s lap halfway through the session on the medium compound tyre.

A few minutes later his team-mate beat him by less than a tenth of a second. At that stage they were quicker than Jenson Button's McLaren by over a second.

A number of drivers were caught out at the end of the back straight and ran wide entering Turn 11 - including the Mercedes runners - thanks to the gusty tail wind at the Sakhir circuit.

There was further problems for Caterham's Marcus Ericsson, who complained that his Renault was not delivering full power in the opening minutes of the hour.

Qualifying takes place under floodlights at 6pm local time.

Pos  Driver             Team/Car              Time       Gap      Laps
 1.  Lewis Hamilton     Mercedes              1m35.324s           12
 2.  Nico Rosberg       Mercedes              1m35.439s  +0.115s  12
 3.  Sergio Perez       Force India-Mercedes  1m35.868s  +0.544s  10
 4.  Valtteri Bottas    Williams-Mercedes     1m36.116s  +0.792s  10
 5.  Felipe Massa       Williams-Mercedes     1m36.364s  +1.040s  8
 6.  Jenson Button      McLaren-Mercedes      1m36.394s  +1.070s  8
 7.  Fernando Alonso    Ferrari               1m36.454s  +1.130s  12
 8.  Nico Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes  1m36.455s  +1.131s  11
 9.  Daniil Kvyat       Toro Rosso-Renault    1m36.680s  +1.356s  16
10.  Kimi Raikkonen     Ferrari               1m36.772s  +1.448s  13
11.  Kevin Magnussen    McLaren-Mercedes      1m36.822s  +1.498s  8
12.  Jean-Eric Vergne   Toro Rosso-Renault    1m37.030s  +1.706s  11
13.  Daniel Ricciardo   Red Bull-Renault      1m37.119s  +1.795s  11
14.  Esteban Gutierrez  Sauber-Ferrari        1m37.325s  +2.001s  18
15.  Adrian Sutil       Sauber-Ferrari        1m38.089s  +2.765s  24
16.  Kamui Kobayashi    Caterham-Renault      1m38.400s  +3.076s  17
17.  Jules Bianchi      Marussia-Ferrari      1m38.736s  +3.412s  15
18.  Pastor Maldonado   Lotus-Renault         1m38.880s  +3.556s  21
19.  Marcus Ericsson    Caterham-Renault      1m38.971s  +3.647s  18
20.  Romain Grosjean    Lotus-Renault         1m39.208s  +3.884s  17
21.  Sebastian Vettel   Red Bull-Renault      1m39.225s  +3.901s  8
22.  Max Chilton        Marussia-Ferrari      1m39.597s  +4.273s  14