Pizzonia Enjoys First Suzuka Outing

"This was a new track for me and the first impression is pretty good," said Pizzonia, who despite making his Grand Prix debut in 2003 had never raced at the Japanese circuit.

"I like this track, as it is quite challenging and quite difficult too. I have heard from some drivers that they only felt they knew this track perfectly after three years, so I have plenty to learn.

"Anyway, today we went through the programme that we had planned and there's a lot more to come from me and a little bit from the car, so we are looking forward to the rest of the weekend."

The Brazilian finished as 12th quickest in the afternoon session, two places behind Australian teammate Mark Webber, who was also happy with his day despite suffering a gearbox problem in the morning.

His team, however, managed to replace the gearbox quickly and Webber did not lose much time.

"We had a good day," admitted Webber. "I think everyone was expecting the rain to come so did all our homework for Michelin before it started to rain. This was very important in preparation for the race, which we are expecting to be dry, since we don't know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow.

"All in all we managed to find a pretty good balance. Towards the end of the first session I had a gearbox problem, but our mechanics did a good job fixing it in between the sessions, so that I lost only a little track time."