Fisichella hopeful of more progress

The Italian driver, looking to end a disappointing run of five races without a point, finished as seventh fastest in the afternoon session despite not feeling fully comfortable with his car's handling.

"The balance of the car wasn't fantastic this morning, but we made some good changes at lunchtime, and then carried on moving forward during the afternoon session," said Fisichella.

"We did a lot of laps, explored some different directions with the set-up, and we know where we can improve for tomorrow. The track itself is quite nice to drive.

"We knew it was not going to be a match for Suzuka, but there are still some challenging sections: the final part where you can gain a lot of time, and even the quicker corners through turns 3/4/5, where you need to carry a lot of speed and get the perfect line to be quick.

"Overall, I think this was a good first day, and now we have to work hard to make more progress overnight."

Fisichella finished right behind teammate Heikki Kovalainen, who completed a promising day for the French squad.

"I am pretty happy after today's sessions," said Kovalainen. "This was our first day at a new track, and I think we did a good job: we completed a lot of laps, there were no problems and the mechanics worked very well to get through the set-up changes in our programme.

"We made progress with the car all through the day, and I think that once we have gone through the data this evening, we will see that there is still a little bit more performance still to come.

"In terms of the track itself, I found it quite fun to drive. As we expected, it is very smooth so there are no big problems in terms of our comfort, but I think the key section is definitely the last five turns. They are very slow, and you are always tempted to over-drive this part of the lap.

"However, the car is very light on downforce because the speeds are low, so you have to be patient and really work hard on the mechanical grip and on being very smooth with the driving style.

"I think I got to grips with the circuit quickly, and I am looking forward to another competitive day tomorrow."