The McLaren driver's best effort of 1:34.910 put him comfortably clear of Wednesday pace-setter Nico Hülkenberg.

Having spent the majority of the morning in his garage, with the MP4-29 needing a little more attention than initially anticipated, the majority of Magnussen's running came in the final few hours of the session.

The Dane gradually lowered the benchmark as the chequered flag approached, delivering his sub-1m35s lap time with just over 30 minutes of the session remaining, leaving early leader Hülkenberg in second.

Fernando Alonso took third on what was a largely smooth day for the Ferrari team, the Spaniard placing just ahead of Nico Rosberg's Mercedes W05, which showed its first frail signs of the pre-season when it caused two early red flag periods.

Williams' Valtteri Bottas completed the most laps of the day, hitting 115 in total, en route to fifth, while Caterham driver Kamui Kobayashi delivered a late improvement to end as the final man underneath the 1m40s barrier.

Despite finishing more than five seconds adrift of Magnussen and greeting the RB10 with an abundance of fire extinguishers after most runs, Red Bull enjoyed a much more encouraging second day in the Middle East. Sebastian Vettel was able to rack up 56 laps at the Sakhir venue, just one shy of a Grand Prix distance.

Toro Rosso driver Jean-Éric Vergne and Sauber's Esteban Gutiérrez, who were the other two men to cause stoppages, followed in eighth and ninth respectively, ahead of Romain Grosjean and Max Chilton, whose respective Lotus and Marussia teams continued to experience technical trouble with their new cars.