Sutil confident of being in top 10

Tonio Liuzzi backed his team-mate up with seventh in the morning, and they were then classified 12th and 14th when concentrating on longer runs in second practice.

Both drivers had raved about their car's performance in testing, and Sutil is optimistic he can carry that form into qualifying and the race this weekend.

"It's our goal to get two cars through to Q3 for this weekend and I think we now have a very good baseline with the car and good downforce compared to last year," said Sutil. "We can be a top 10 runner with this car this year and myself and Tonio are working well together.

"If we can qualify in the top ten now it can lead to decent points, which is, at the end of the day, what we want to do consistently this season. I would say it's a promising start to get there, for sure."

Liuzzi reckons that Force India will actually be stronger in Sunday's race than in qualifying trim.

"The car is reacting well to different fuel loads and to different tyres and overall we can be pretty happy with the results at the end of this first Friday," he said.

"I think we are in a good way for tomorrow. For sure we could improve our single lap time, but the race pace looks good. A positive start to the weekend."