Liuzzi encouraged by improved pace

"A good day overall, with no big problems on the car," said Liuzzi, who up until now has complained about his team's lack of running prior to the start of the season.

"We worked mainly on evaluating the different tyres to see which to choose for qualifying and the race. I am quite happy that the car seemed to respond very well to all the set-up modifications we made.

"Also, our pace was quite good today, which means we have made a little bit of progress since last weekend. But the big step won't come until later so the important thing this weekend is to get as many kilometers as possible under our belt."

Liuzzi set a promising eighth quickest time in the morning session, but was unable to match that performance in the afternoon, having to settle for 17th position.

Teammate Scott Speed finished as 20th quickest, and the American too believes his team are looking more competitive.

"The car definitely feels more competitive than it did when I drove it here in the pre-season test, but that's only to be expected," he said. "More importantly, the car feels more competitive than it did last week in Malaysia. That's great news, as we did not really expect that.

"Now we will have to see if that stays true for the rest of the weekend. We have made a lot of changes to the car set-up since last weekend. We are chipping away and learning more and more about the car, so this has been a useful day."