Di Resta confident of improving VJM04

Despite not beginning his programme until 1540, di Resta set the sixth fastest time of the day - having completed 26 laps - 2.2s off Sebastian Vettel's ultimate pace.

But given the time he lost in the morning, the DTM champion said that he expected to improve the car through tomorrow before handing it over to his team-mate Adrian Sutil.

"The guys did pretty well to get the car out on track today and towards the end of the afternoon we did some productive running to get a good baseline set-up for tomorrow when we'll have a much more extensive test programme to carry out," he said. "I definitely feel there is more to come from the car and I'm looking forward to getting back out there to help the team get as much out of this test as possible.

Force India's engineering director Dominic Harlow added: "We didn't run this morning as we were waiting for some parts to arrive at the track until early in the day, and the knock on effect of the turnaround from Jerez meant there was a lot to do to complete the car build.

"The track conditions weren't good anyway, with wet, cold and slippery conditions so we felt we did not miss too much.

"The afternoon's session was much better and we started our testing with some aerodynamic tests and tyre comparison looking at the new soft."