Jean-Eric Vergne remains on top in Abu Dhabi test

The Frenchman, who also topped the first two days of the test, improved on his best time by over a second to top the times by 2.430s from Ferrari's Jules Bianchi.

Oliver Turvey returned to work for McLaren after sitting out yesterday's running in favour of Gary Paffett. He ended the morning ahead of Force India returnee Max Chilton, who was fourth fastest overall.

Alexander Rossi, driving an F1 car for the first time since a tryout for BMW Sauber in December 2009, made his first appearance for Team Lotus. After spending the early running familiarising himself with the car, he ended up fifth fastest ahead of Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez.

Stefano Coletti returned to action for Scuderia Toro Rosso, ending up with a best time 5.628s off the pace. He hands over the car to Kevin Ceccon for the rest of the day.

Mirko Bortolotti was another to return to F1 action after two years away, driving for Williams as a prize for winning the F2 title. He ended the morning eighth fastest after improving on his final lap.

Nathanael Berthon had his first significant run in the HRT. He completed nine laps yesterday afternoon, but added a further 36 this morning. He ended up just five-hundredths of a second faster than Virgin's Charles Pic, with Renault debutant Jan Charouz a further eight-tenths behind.

Sam Bird was slowest on the timesheets, but spent the morning focusing on evaluation work, including running experimental exhausts for 2012 as Mercedes worked to understand the loss of performance from new regulations designed to outlaw blown diffusers.

Morning times:

Pos  Driver               Team                   Time     
 1.  Jean-Eric Vergne     Red Bull-Renault       1m38.917s
 2.  Jules Bianchi        Ferrari                1m41.347s
 3.  Olivier Turvey       McLaren-Mercedes       1m42.346s
 4.  Max Chilton          Force India-Mercedes   1m42.618s
 5.  Alexander Rossi      Lotus-Renault          1m44.381s
 6.  Esteban Gutierrez    Sauber-Ferrari         1m44.531s
 7.  Stefano Coletti      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m44.545s
 8.  Mirko Bortolotti     Williams-Cosworth      1m46.076s
 9.  Nathanael Berthon    HRT-Cosworth           1m46.299s
10.  Charles Pic          Virgin-Cosworth        1m46.348s
11.  Jan Charouz          HRT-Cosworth           1m47.159s
12.  Sam Bird             Mercedes GP            1m47.624s

All Timing Unofficial