Spyker happy with Bahrain progress

The Dutch squad introduced a significant aerodynamic upgrade in the last race in Malaysia, hoping that it would help them move closer to their rivals.

But the team endured a disappointing weekend and stayed at the back of the field.

However, both Adrian Sutil and Christijan Albers fared somewhat better in today's practice, the German finishing as 19th quickest and the Dutchman in 21st position, some two seconds off the pace.

"I think we can be very pleased with the performance we've shown here today, especially as we hadn't been here in either of the pre-season tests," said Gascoyne.

"It was pretty productive - we spent the day evaluating the hard and medium Bridgestone Potenza tyres that we haven't run here before, running the softer tyre in the afternoon.

"Overall we're very happy with the progress today; the car is clearly working a lot better here than in Malaysia. We had a clear direction in set-up we carried over from last weekend, it's proved to be the right one and I hope the improvement can continue over the weekend."