McLaren duo hold judgement

Heavy rain limited the pair's running of the new machine with neither drivers setting a time in the first session. With the rain holding off for much of the second session the two got to work finishing the day in seventh (Coulthard) and ninth (Raikkonen).

Neither driver wanted to read into the day's effort, but both were cautiously optimistic ahead of Saturday's two qualifying sessions.

"Our running today was affected by the wet weather, so there is very little data to work with, but it's the same for everybody," said Coulthard. "Fortunately we don't have to make a decision about tyres until lunchtime tomorrow, so hopefully the weather will stay dry. However, so far so good, but we will only really know how good the 19B is once we have completed qualifying and the race."

"We only did one run today because of the weather, which is a shame," added Raikkonen. "However the car felt good, but that is all I can say at the moment. There is definitely more to come as I didn't even push particularly hard. It's difficult to say how big a step forward we have taken, but it should become clear as the weekend progresses."

One of the main problems with the MP4-19B's predecessor was its handling imbalance, but according to team boss Ron Dennis, this problem seems to have been solved in the newer model.

"Our weather forecast today proved to be quite accurate," he said. "As a result we limited our running to the very short dry period in the second session. Both drivers found their cars devoid of any serious negative handling characteristics, so our normal set-up work will be incorporated into tomorrow's tyre programme."