Sebastian Vettel: Red Bull closer to McLaren on race pace in Malaysia

The German, however, admitted he was not entirely pleased with his car yet after finishing down in 10th position in this afternoon's practice at Sepang.

Vettel also conceded he was unsure if he will be able to fight for pole tomorrow.

"It is hard to say," he said when asked if pole position was on the cards. "McLaren looked very strong today, morning and afternoon. I haven't seen the long runs, I think we are closer by the looks of it in long-run pace so we will see what we can do."

Vettel, who finished in second place in the season-opening race in Australia, said he still needed to work to get the car ready for qualifying.

"I'm not entirely happy maybe. This afternoon I would have liked to have been further up but it is one lap you are looking at," said the Red Bull driver.

"All in all we had decent running today - but there is still a lot to do. I am not entirely happy yet but it is not as if we expected that all our problems would be solved within three hours today.

"The run was not perfect because otherwise we would have been higher up, but before that and after that it was quite OK. It was a one-off and didn't use the tyre as much as we should have. So I am not entirely happy yet."

Team-mate Mark Webber, seventh fastest, was pleased with his day's work after managing to complete his programme.

"It wasn't a bad Friday. We have plenty to go through tonight," he said. "It is a different venue altogether to Melbourne. It was a pretty productive day. We got through everything we wanted to get through. It was very good in that sense of the team's programme."