RBR stays cool over practice pace

The Australian was a full 1.6 seconds quicker than the rest of the field in first practice in Malaysia, although McLaren's Jenson Button was within 0.005s of his afternoon pace.

"We look okay," said Webber. "Obviously it was still early days in the weekend, we have got good dry running in, the car is reliable which is always a nice bonus so we got to try out all the tyres - including Pirelli's new tyre - so not too bad."

He preferred not to read too much into either his large morning margin or the afternoon's closer times.

"Not much in it," said Webber. "We are pretty close, give or take who got traffic or who didn't, how KERS worked, so it is all pretty good. So far so good and I am towards the front somewhere."

His team-mate Sebastian Vettel was also quietly content.

"A usual Friday I would say," he said. "We more or less did what was planned and didn't have any big problems. A lot of laps and a lot we took on board.

"Tyre wear is very different to Melbourne, the tyres don't last as long, but I think that's the same for everyone."

He agreed with Webber that it was impossible to judge whether McLaren had closed in.

"It looked very close this afternoon, so we'll have to see tomorrow," Vettel said. "It's always difficult to know what they did with fuel loads. But we didn't run full tanks all day."