Super Aguri duo rue 'difficult' day

The Japanese squad, surprisingly competitive at the season opener in Australia, put on another decent showing on Friday, with Sato finishing as 14th quickest.

Despite that, the Japanese driver believes there is still work to do before he is happy with his car's handling.

"I think it was a difficult day," said Sato. "Having completed a good test last week, we came back here with a positive attitude, but this morning we really struggled. Looking at the others, I thought that the track conditions weren't too bad, but we just could not get a good grip.

"In the afternoon we tried a slightly different approach and the car seemed to work better than in the morning, which I was happy with, but still I think we have to work a lot for tomorrow's session."

Teammate Anthony Davidson had the same complaints after claiming the car felt very different compared to last week's four-day test at Sepang.

The British driver finished down in 18th position.

"It was a difficult day for me," admitted Davidson. "I couldn't find the balance in the car all day and so hopefully we can improve on this for tomorrow. The car didn't feel anything like it did in the test here last week, so it's a bit confusing.

"But Taku had a good day and proved that the car still has the pace that we had in Melbourne, so it's just up to me and the engineers to work on it overnight and get a nice balance for tomorrow."