Fisichella happy despite low-key day

The Italian driver finished in 11th position in the afternoon after he had been only 18th in the morning session.

But Fisichella was still pleased with his day's work and reckons the times are not telling the real story.

"I had a pretty good day," said the Italian. "We did lots of laps and completed the programme, which is always the first objective. The changes we made to the set-up were good, and I felt really comfortable out on track.

"The times and handling balance were quite consistent on the long runs, which is an important factor for the race, and I don't think the position will look too bad once we have completed our analysis.

"There's still more progress to come from our work overnight, but I think we have a good starting point to work from."

Teammate Heikki Kovalainen was not as satisfied with his day after suffering from balance issues. The Finn finished down in 17th position.

"The car balance isn't quite where I want it to be at the moment, and that was costing me time today - especially as I also had some traffic on my last timed laps on new tyres," he said. "But that is something we can tune overnight, to be honest.

"The important thing was to do the programme, make some good set-up changes, and give ourselves a platform for tomorrow. I think we managed that successfully, and we know the direction we need to go overnight.

"There is still work to be done, and some time to be found in the car, but I think we will look better tomorrow, than the timesheets suggest right now."