Rosberg buoyed by practice result

The Williams driver set the pace in the opening session, a fraction faster than team-mate Kazuki Nakajima and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen. He then lowered his best lap to a 1:26.053 in the afternoon practice, a tenth quicker than Rubens Barrichello and three tenths up on third-placed Timo Glock.

Rosberg isn't yet certain that his advantage will carry on throughout the weekend, but admitted that the strong start has raised his expectations.

"My hopes are higher than before that we can definitely have consistent points scoring," he said. "We've definitely gone better than I thought, which is a really nice thing. How good remains to be seen, but we are in a better position which is nice."

But he says that each team's true pace won't be revealed until the first qualifying session.

"We've done very well today but that [points] target still remains because it's not clear how much fuel other people were running - although saying that, we were not empty either. Still we have some reserve, but it will still be interesting tomorrow.

"We must wait for tomorrow, but it was still great for the whole team to finish first twice. It's still nice and we haven't done anything different from what we normally do. So we have done a nice step forward, but how much I cannot really say.

"But I think we are going to be able to enjoy ourselves for the first few races."