Fisichella upbeat after promising start

The Italian driver, who has joined the Silverstone-based squad from Renault, managed the ninth fastest time in the afternoon session, having been 12th in the morning.

Fisichella admitted their start is a good omen and reckons the team have taken a big leap forward during the pre-season.

"It was a good challenge today and it looks quite promising," said Fisichella. "We made a big step forward over the winter and, with the new development parts we have here, we are not looking too bad.

"I am happy with the job we are doing so far, both the team and myself are working well together, and although we know we still have a lot of work to do and it is going to be tough, it's a good start."

Adrian Sutil also believes the team are in much better form than last year after setting the 17th fastest time.

The German, however, felt he could have been faster if not for traffic on his fastest run.

"I think today went quite well," he said. "The track was slippery at the beginning, so it was difficult to find a good balance to start with, but after the first run I was happy and then we didn't change so much over the sessions - really just fine-tuned everything.

"We had a small hydraulic problem before lunch but it was soon solved and we could do several longer runs in the second free practice with some quite good lap times.

"At the end it was a little bit unlucky I had some traffic on my fastest lap so I couldn't do a good time with the new tyres, but tomorrow is another day and I think we should be much better than last year."