Bird fastest again in second FR3.5 practice at Moscow Raceway

Bird had set the pace for much of the second half of the session, which started late after the day's programme was halted due to a power cut at the circuit around lunchtime.

The ISR driver then responded to Bianchi the first time the Frenchman pipped him with 17 minutes remaining. Shortly after that he did the same thing when championship rival Robin Frijns briefly took top spot.

But when the session went green again with five minutes to go after a brief red flag, Bianchi was one of the few drivers to get clear track for his one flying lap, and he managed a lap less than a tenth of a second quicker than his former GP2 team-mate.

His time, however, was later disallowed for going crossing the chequered flag twice and he dropped to fifth, leaving Bird as quickest, with Marco Sorensen in second just ahead of Frijns.

Late improvements from Arthur Pic and Jake Rosenzweig got them into the top six.

Pos Driver               Team                  Time              Laps
 1. Sam Bird             ISR                   1m23.675s          26
 2. Marco Sorensen       Lotus                 1m24.111s + 0.436  33
 3. Robin Frijns         Fortec Motorsports    1m24.134s + 0.459  29
 4. Arthur Pic           DAMS                  1m24.433s + 0.758  25
 5. Jules Bianchi        Tech 1 Racing         1m24.441s + 0.766  24
 6. Nico Müller          Draco                 1m24.582s + 0.907  26
 7. Kevin Magnussen      Carlin                1m24.646s + 0.971  24
 8. Jake Rosenzweig      ISR                   1m24.649s + 0.974  27
 9. César Ramos          Lotus                 1m24.689s + 1.014  28
10. A.F.da Costa         Arden Caterham        1m24.839s + 1.164  29
11. Nick Yelloly         Comtec Racing         1m24.936s + 1.261  31
12. Kevin Korjus         Tech 1 Racing         1m25.273s + 1.598  32
13. Zoel Amberg          Pons Racing           1m25.299s + 1.624  31
14. Alexander Rossi      Arden Caterham        1m25.304s + 1.629  23
15. Carlos Huertas       Fortec Motorsports    1m25.567s + 1.892  20
16. Lucas Foresti        DAMS                  1m25.857s + 2.182  26
17. Yann Cunha           Pons Racing           1m25.880s + 2.205  18
18. André Negrão         Draco                 1m25.912s + 2.237  18
19. N.Martsenko          BVM Target            1m26.238s + 2.563  28
20. W.Grubmüller         P1 Motorsport         1m26.289s + 2.614  20
21. Will Stevens         Carlin                1m26.309s + 2.634  27
22. V.Ghirelli           Comtec Racing         1m26.540s + 2.865  25
23. Sergey Sirotkin      BVM Target            1m26.765s + 3.090  13
24. Mikhail Aleshin      Team RFR              1m27.327s + 3.652  22
25. Daniil Move          P1 Motorsport         1m27.536s + 3.861  15
26. A.Nebylitskiy        Team RFR              1m27.622s + 3.947  23