Coulthard Upbeat after Practice

The Scotsman was fourth quickest in the first practice session and is pretty confident about how the weekend will pan out - especially after the disastrous outing he had in Brazil two weeks ago.

"Considering we ran a normal Friday programme today, our performance this morning seemed to be pretty good," said Coulthard. "Fourth fastest is not too bad at all. Of course, we still have to do Saturday and Sunday to complete the cycle, but we certainly seem to be more competitive here than we have been at other circuits this year."

Teammate Christian Klien could only manage the 10th fastest time in that dry first session but he was equally happy with how the RB1 felt.

"We thought it might rain this afternoon, so we did most of our running this morning, just to ensure we knew what the situation was regarding tyre choice and car set-up," he said. "Fortunately, it stayed dry for most of this afternoon, so we were able to have another look at the tyres.

"The car felt good to drive and we were quite competitive. However, as always on a Friday, it's difficult to judge exactly where we are overall from the times. I'm looking
Forward to racing here; Suzuka is quite a tricky circuit, with lots of direction and elevation changes. 

"That, together with the fact that it might rain this weekend, should make things pretty interesting."

The only negative point of Red Bull Racing's day was third driver Vitantonio Liuzzi suffering an electronic and hydraulic failure early in the second session.