Toro Rosso impress again in practice

Sebastian Vettel took his now obligatory place in the top ten with seventh fastest time in the wet-dry afternoon session. The German admitted afterwards that he had enjoyed driving in the conditions.

"It was an interesting day and as expected, the weather made for some pretty strange conditions," he said. "Especially in the afternoon, it was important that we got some dry laps, to get another look at how the car was performing, having made some changes to it, as I was not completely happy with it in the morning.

"The afternoon showed it was much better. I thought it was cool to drive in these conditions as you have no margin for error: 10 centimetres the wrong way and you can crash.

"You have to be very precise and it demands very accurate driving. When you push, you start to feel your balls in your pants! It was interesting and I like it."

Teammate Sebastien Bourdais showed once again that he is making steady progress with the STR-03 on his first visit to the Ardennes track with a Formula One team.

The Frenchman impressed in the morning session, going faster than his Red Bull-bound teammate with the seventh fastest time, but dropped to 13th in the afternoon as he took care not to drop the car in the tricky conditions.

"This is the most beautiful track, but the conditions are often a pain in the arse and with the dry tyres in the drizzle we had this afternoon, if you touched the white line you would crash," he explained. "So I didn't take any risks, especially as you don't learn much in these conditions.

"The morning session was quite good and now we just have to find a solution to the fact I am locking the rears. Apart from that, we have found a reasonable balance and I feel happy with that as I think we were quite competitive this morning and in general, we look in good shape."