Heidfeld hindered by fuel pressure issue

The German could manage no better than 14th in the second session, having been third in the morning, but thinks that the issues he suffered with his car means he is in better shape that the timesheets indicate.

"My lap times don't look good, but it isn't that bad," said the German. "I had problems with the fuel pressure and, of course, when the engine cuts out it costs time.

"Apart from this both sessions went well, and in the morning the track had a surprisingly high amount of grip."

Teammate Robert Kubica was ninth and seventh in the two sessions, and feels that set-up improvements need to be made for Saturday.

"It was quite a good day as we did a lot of testing," he said. "We concentrated mainly on the long runs to how the tyres were behaving, because this morning we had quite a lot of graining.

"We changed the set-up of the car to improve it and, in fact, in the afternoon we put the new set of tyres on early just to run them in the end on long runs.

"We have to work a bit on the set-up and chose the best compromise. Now we are waiting for Saturday for the weather as some forecasts predict rain."