Jordan Face Tough Tyre Choice

The Indian believes that Bridgestone's soft and hard tyre options are actually very close in performance - which makes the choice that much harder to make.

"The tyre choice for the rest of the weekend will be critical because the long corners are hard on the front tyres and we have to look after them as much as possible in order not to grain them," he said.

"We will have to choose carefully between the soft tyres and the hard ones. We will go through the data this afternoon and tonight but I am sure it will take us some time as the two compounds that Bridgestone have brought are very close.

"This is not an easy circuit to learn as it is pretty hard to get the line straight and it is very important to have good brakes because of the long straights."

Although Tiago Monteiro managed to just pip Karthikeyan's best time in practice, he was far from happy with his day after suffering mechanical problems.

"It was a difficult first day for me as I experienced a few technical issues in both sessions," he said. "I had to learn the track as I have never been here and spent some time on that.

"We also tried to get a good car balance but unfortunately I did not do as many laps as we wanted to as I had problems. We have to find out what happened and keep on working on the set-up of the car tomorrow."