Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc were almost inseparable as Ferrari completed a Friday practice sweep in Bahrain.
Opting to complete two qualifying simulations on fresh soft tyres, Vettel finished just 0.035s ahead of his teammate with a 1m28.846s.
Mercedes had no answer with Lewis Hamilton 0.6s in third, while Valtteri Bottas was slightly compromised by having to abort his first flying lap and finished a tenth down on the Briton after his second attempt.
Red Bull also struggled for pace, allowing Nico Hulkenberg to claim fifth for Renault, just ahead of Max Verstappen who complained of a lack of straight-line speed.
Haas are back in play at the front of the midfield with Kevin Magnussen seventh and Romain Grosjean ninth.
The battle for the final places in Q3 would have been between McLaren and Toro Rosso as their four cars featured from P8-13.
Lando Norris was the man to split the two Haas’ in eighth, but reported an engine issue during the long run which hopefully, is nothing serious.
Daniil Kvyat completed the top 10 for the junior Red Bull team, while their teammates, Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon, have some work to do in P11 and P13 respectively.
Joining the group was Pierre Gasly in the second Red Bull in P12, with the Frenchman certainly hoping for more performance on Saturday.
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Racing Point and Alfa Romeo sat P14-18 with Daniel Ricciardo the odd-one-out in P15 as the Australian continues to lack pace in the Renault.
Like the earlier session, Lance Stroll was compromised by damage, this time to the floor requiring repairs.
At Alfa, the problems were much worse, however, as leaks on both cars prevented them from completing race simulations in the second half of the session.
Antonio Giovinazzi was able to get back out and complete some laps in the final 10 minutes, however.
At the back, Williams still bring up the field as George Russell sat a second clear of teammate Robert Kubica in 19th and 20th.
Full results from Practice 2 can be seen below:
