Trulli confident of maintaining Fuji pace

The Italian ended the session just fourth tenths slower than pace-setter Lewis Hamilton and described himself as happy with progress.

"It was a good, productive day for us," he said. "In general the car seems to be behaving well.

"We tested several things, both mechanically and aerodynamically, and we made some good progress on setup and balance. We also did some long runs which will help us to understand about the behaviour of the different tyre compounds.

"Everything went smoothly so I am happy."

Teammate Timo Glock, who raced at Shanghai for Jordan in 2004, was unable to harness the same consistency of balance as Trulli, but remains confident of solving his setup problems on Saturday morning.

"Both sessions were a bit tricky for me because I've found the car quite difficult to drive today," he said. "I haven't found the right direction to go yet in terms of setup and it has been hard to find the right balance.

"But we will work hard on the information we collected today and try to make an improvement for tomorrow."