Kovalainen upbeat about Lotus form

The Finn, who gave the team its first race finish in the previous event in Bahrain, posted the 18th quickest time, outpacing the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari.

Kovalainen was just three tenths of a second slower than Ferrari's Felipe Massa, 17th quickest.

"The second session was much better for me, because the car functioned very well and we had the differential working 100%," said Kovalainen. "The car felt really really good and we were very pleased with the way it was behaving.

"Obviously the rain disrupted things a little bit, but everyone was in the same boat. So, we're well prepared, and we're just going to try to maintain the reliability that we've achieved so far. Overall we're in really good shape."

Jarno Trulli, on the other hand, did not enjoy a good day, the Italian being hit by problems in the morning session and then having to cope with the rain in the afternoon.

He was 20th quickest.

"It's been a bit of a difficult day because we lost a bit of time this morning, and unfortunately this afternoon the track was pretty wet so we couldn't really find a good set-up," said Trulli.

"When I went out I had a few issues with understeer but, though it'll be a little difficult tomorrow, we'll see what we can learn in final practice before qualifying starts."