Williams buoyed by strong practice

Having dominated free practice in Australia last weekend, Rosberg and Nakajima recorded the first and second fastest times in the first session at Sepang.

They then followed that up with more competitive showings in the second 90 minutes on Friday afternoon.

"We had a very good day and made a lot of set-up changes, and made good progress in finding a way forward," said Rosberg.

"We also completed a good tyre test which is important as I think we now have a good idea of what is going on with the tyres for this circuit."

Nakajima was equally upbeat: "Today was a very positive day and we have carried over our competitiveness from the last race.

"Whether we are as quick relatively as we were in Melbourne remains to be seen," he added, "but certainly we are far further ahead than we were here last year and we'll keep pushing on tomorrow and see what more we can find."