Quiet but productive day for Red Bull

"We did a lot of running today, so that's good," said Sebastian Vettel at the end of the Friday's practice sessions in Bahrain, summing up a quiet but productive day that saw him finish in third place in the combined timesheets, his lap of 1:33.525s a quarter of a second adrift of his team mate Mark Webber. "We are focusing on ourselves and pushing hard," continued the two-time world champion. "We made a step forward, but we see where we are tomorrow." "It's dangerous to read too much into Fridays, but it's been a positive day for us," was the opinion of team principal Christian Horner. "The drivers seem reasonably settled in the car - but as we've seen already in the championship, things can move around a lot quickly." Like many of the drivers in action on Friday, tyre wear was the paramount issue as Vettel got down to work. "It's very hot here, so the tyres are suffering a little as a result - but it's the same for all teams," he said. "We now need to see where we are against what everyone else did today ... Tyres will play a big role on Sunday in the race." "The tyres were a bit of a surprise for everybody in terms of how they are behaving," contributed Mark Webber in turn. "They're losing their grip pretty quick, but that's the same for everybody." Both drivers were cautious when asked about how they think Red Bull stood in relation to the other leading teams when it came to who was on best form for Sunday's race. "There are some quick cars out there," said Webber. "Of course we don't know which fuel loads people were running, but it looks pretty tight again. "I think others are the favourites this weekend," stated Vettel. "We expect Mercedes and McLaren to be very strong at this track," was the opinion of team boss Horner. "We believe it plays to the strengths of their cars, but we will try our best to take the fight to them."