Bird and Maki top Norisring practice

The British driver, who took pole position for the season opener at Hockenheim, had his lap of 49.371s matched by Maki's final effort of the one-hour session.

Behind them, rookie Alexander Sims showed impressive pace to be less than one tenth of a second off the pace, ahead of the experienced Jean-Karl Vernay.

Recent F3 Masters winner Valtteri Bottas was the top ART car in fifth, as the French team experimented with a radical rear wing set-up on its cars.

Championship leader Jules Bianchi ran the wing - which features no top element and very small endplates - throughout the session on his way to eighth place, while Adrien Tambay also experimented with it. Bottas and Bianchi both improved their times with the new wing.

Bianchi occasionally troubled the top five on the timesheets, but by the end of the session he was 0.3s off the pace, while Tambay was another four tenths back in 14th place.

Mucke Motorsport continued the strong form it has shown in the early races by getting all of its cars into the top seven. Local driver Marco Wittmann was sixth quickest, while Christian Vietoris was ahead of Bianchi as the pair set the same lap times.

Further down the order, British F3 race winner Nick Tandy was 21st after completing the most laps of every driver, as he prepares to make his Euro Series debut for the Kolles & Heinz Union outfit.

Pos Driver                Team         Car    Time        Gap
 1. Sam Bird              Mucke        D/M    49.371s
 2. Mika Maki             Signature    D/V    49.371s  +0.000
 3. Alexander Sims        Mucke        D/M    49.438s  +0.067
 4. Jean-Karl Vernay      Signature    D/V    49.523s  +0.152
 5. Valtteri Bottas       ART          D/M    49.574s  +0.203
 6. Marco Wittmann        Mucke        D/M    49.636s  +0.265
 7. Christian Vietoris    Mucke        D/M    49.652s  +0.281
 8. Jules Bianchi         ART          D/M    49.652s  +0.281
 9. Stefano Coletti       Prema        D/M    49.726s  +0.355
10. Brendon Hartley       Carlin       D/V    49.734s  +0.363
11. Roberto Merhi         Manor        D/M    49.837s  +0.466
12. Tiago Geronimi        Signature    D/V    49.954s  +0.583
13. Basil Shaaban         Prema        D/M    49.963s  +0.592
14. Adrien Tambay         ART          D/M    50.021s  +0.650
15. Jake Rosenzweig       Carlin       D/V    50.060s  +0.689
16. Esteban Gutierrez     ART          D/M    50.173s  +0.802
17. Pedro Nunes           Manor        D/M    50.182s  +0.811
18. Matteo Chinosi        Prema        D/M    50.189s  +0.818
19. Atte Mustonen         Motopark     D/M    50.196s  +0.825
20. Christopher Zanella   Motopark     D/M    50.223s  +0.852
21. Nick Tandy            Kolles       D/V    50.224s  +0.853
22. Kevin Mirocha         HBR          D/M    50.245s  +0.874
23. Johnny Cecotto Jr     HBR          D/M    50.264s  +0.893
24. Cesar Ramos           Manor        D/M    50.305s  +0.934
25. Henkie Waldschmidt    SG           D/M    50.480s  +1.109
26. Andrea Caldarelli     SG           D/M    50.648s  +1.277
27. Johan Jokinen         Kolles       D/V    50.761s  +1.390