Vettel downplays practice performance

The Scuderia Toro Rosso driver, who qualified in the top ten in Australia, continued to show strong form at Sepang, despite missing part of the first session after a brake problem caused him to spin into the gravel.

The German, however, was quick to play down his top five performance.

"Laptimes don't always tell the full story, but I think we can be happy with the afternoon, when we did quite a lot of laps," said Vettel. "Unfortunately, this morning we had a brake problem, but in the end it did not cost us too much time and we were able to continue with our programme in the afternoon.

"We spent most of the time fine-tuning the car and finding the right balance, sorting out tyre choice. It has been a good day and we have got plenty of data to study for tomorrow."

Teammate Sebastien Bourdais, on his first visit to Sepang, also hit trouble during the day and was unable to complete any timed laps in the afternoon.

"This circuit is very nice and very fast, a really good track," he said. "However there wasn't much grip so it was difficult to get a full understanding of the situation. Then it was a case of moving forward step by step, waiting for the track to come to us.

"Unfortunately, this afternoon, we had a gearbox problem right at the start, after a ratio change and this error on our part broke the engine. The car seemed not too bad this morning and we were planning to see how it felt on different tyres this afternoon, but it was not to be."