TeamVodafone duo Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup continued their dominance of the V8 Supercar Championship in the Middle East after topping the timesheets in practice for the Gulf Air Desert 400 at the Bahrain International Circuit.
Lowndes clocked the quickest time after the four practice sessions on Thursday - a lap of two minutes 05.317 seconds - with defending V8 champion Whincup three-tenths of a second back.
Holden's Todd Kelly was third-fastest overall in 2:05.702.
Lowndes and Whincup, who won the opening two races of the season in Abu Dhabi last weekend, decided to experiment with a number of set-up changes to their cars as well as run on green tyres on the 5.41-kilometre circuit.
"It is a great start," Lowndes said. "It is nice to come out and top the timesheets in practice as it gives us a lot of confidence heading into qualifying."
"I am 90 percent satisfied with the car balance but there are definitely areas we can still improve on."
"The new section of track is quite technical and it is easy to get sucked into some of the corners and run wide."
Whincup said the abrasive track surface made finding the ideal car balance quite difficult.
"It was great to see both TeamVodafone cars up the front. It was a tough session due to the fact that the track is abrasive which means we have huge tyre degradation," he said.
"Trying to fine tune the car when the tyres are dropping off by over a second is a real challenge."
"Although we were one of only a few teams to run on new tyres we still feel we have a very quick car."
Kelly bounced back from his Abu Dhabi disappointment by topping two of the four practice sessions.
Youngster Shane van Gisbergen finished fourth-fastest for the day while Ford Performance Racing's Steven Richards was fifth.
Qualifying for the Desert 400 begins at 6.10pm (AEDT) on Friday with Race 3 over 200km set to commence at 10.30pm (AEDT).
Desert 400 Practice Sessions (combined)
1 Craig Lowndes 2:05.3174
2 Jamie Whincup 2:05.6104
3 Todd Kelly 2:05.7015
4 Shane van Gisbergen 2:05.7233
5 Steven Richards 2:06.1176
6 Garth Tander 2:06.3512
7Jason Bright 2:06.4957
8 Alex Davison 2:06.5810
9 Russell Ingall 2:06.6384
10 Greg Murphy 2:06.6954