Bourdais not expecting to make Q2

Bourdais finished as 16th quickest in today's practice and, although the Frenchman was happy to enjoy a trouble-free day, he admitted the lack of development parts is likely to hinder the team this weekend.

"It was good that we had a trouble-free day and were able to get on with our work, even if we knew we were not going to be quick enough, as we are lacking some development parts, which at this early point in the season always make a big difference," said the Frenchman.

"I was fairly happy with the balance of the car on the super soft tyre, apart from a bit too much oversteer at high speed. Overall, it's not too bad, but we will do the best we can even if I think we will struggle to make it into Q2 tomorrow."

Team-mate Sebastien Buemi, making his grand prix debut this weekend, finished at the bottom of the times after having set-up problems with his car.

"My first F1 practice session and I had a lot of new things to learn and to deal with," Buemi said. "It was not too bad, we tried various changes and improved the car lap by lap. The second session got off to quite a good start, but later we had some difficulty with finding the right set-up.

"Given our lack of testing with this car, today was like a test session which we used to learn more about the car. It's my first time at this circuit and I still need to get used to it and I learned a lot, but there is still plenty to do to improve tomorrow."