Trulli convinced Toyota is competitive

The Italian, who finished third in the season-opening Australian GP, reckons there is good reason to believe that he can replicate that performance on Sunday.

"If you look at the timing sheets we don't look as competitive as I expected before coming here but I think the car is definitely there and it is just a matter of getting the right direction on set-up," he said.

"The soft tyres seem to be pretty competitive and they were faster but the hard ones were a little bit too hard."

Trulli's team-mate Timo Glock ran off-track a couple of times during practice, but shared the Italian's confidence in Toyota's race potential.

"It has been quite a tricky day for me today," he said. "The car this morning didn't feel quite right and I had some trouble with the stability, then at the beginning of second practice I was getting some oversteer and the car felt light.

"But we worked on some different set-ups and by the end of the day it was feeling better.

"We still have plenty of work to do before qualifying but we had a similar situation in Melbourne and we made a lot of progress so I am still optimistic."