Honda play down Friday performance

Davidson followed on from his quickest time in Bahrain to grab the top spot at Sepang, but his Honda Racing team were left slightly worried by the fact Button and Barrichello could manage no better than eighth and 10 th fastest.

Button said: "A pretty straightforward day for us in terms of our set-up and tyre programme. There's still a lot more to come from the car and some work to be done to nail the set-up, as Anthony's problem demonstrated. Hopefully we can solve our problems for tomorrow."

Barrichello was more downbeat about the car, however. "We still have some work to do on the braking - I'm still struggling with that a little from Bahrain," he explained. "There's still a lot of work to do on the set-up but it was positive to see where Anthony ended up today."

Even Davidson admitted that his session-topping time did not tell the true story of his day - with rear brake issues causing problems and leading to a second-session spin.

"Obviously I'm pleased to end Friday at the top of the timesheets for the second race in a row," he said. "It hasn't been quite as straightforward a day as we hoped, due to the problem I had with the rears locking.

"This caused me to spin and lose a lot of time in the second session. Overall I think we ended the day in better shape and have some good information to work with to improve the car."

The one bit of good news for Button and Barrichello was that Honda are pretty confident that there will be no engine problems for them this weekend, despite the heat in Malaysia.

"We had a very straightforward day with the engine today," said engineering director Shuhei Nakamoto. "We do not anticipate any problems due to the high temperatures and humidity, despite the fact that this will be the second race weekend's mileage conducted on both engines.

"We will analyse the data gathered today and work towards achieving a strong qualifying position tomorrow."