Brawn duo confident of strong weekend

Both drivers were near the top of the times during both sessions, confirming the belief that the team is one of the favourites to fight in front this weekend.

Barrichello was second fastest in the afternoon, just a tenth off the best time, and was left encouraged ahead of tomorrow's qualifying.

"To be here in Melbourne is a real achievement for the team and it feels good to be back in the car and working towards a race weekend strategy again," said Barrichello.

"Despite the limited testing time that we were able to do before this race, we have proved that we have a competitive car and were achieved some good work today.

"We evaluated both tyres and are happy with the overall performance so I think we have a good chance of a strong qualifying performance tomorrow."

Button posted the fifth fastest time despite being slowed down by traffic during his runs with new tyres.

"It was great to finally get the season underway today," Button said. "We had a good first day of practice and the long run performance looks competitive, particularly on the harder tyre.

"We still have some work to do on the softer tyre so that will be a priority for tomorrow's practice session. I had traffic on both of my new tyres runs at the end of the day which was a shame so we don't know how quick we are over one lap yet but there is plenty of time to find that out tomorrow."