Williams hope to make up for lost time

Both Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima suffered gearbox problems in the morning session in Melbourne, meaning they only covered three laps each.

In the afternoon, Rosberg was again hit by trouble, although he managed 31 laps on his way to the eighth fastest time of the session.

Nakajima, running in Australia for the first time, finished down in 16th.

Technical director Sam Michael said the team knew what the problems were and he is hopeful they will be able to be ready for qualifying tomorrow.

"We had a reliability problem with the gearboxes on both cars in the morning session that meant no useful running," said Michael.

"We solved that problem for the second session, but had another problem with the differential on Nico's car that he carried throughout the session.

"We knew what the problem was and it will be fixed for tomorrow, but unfortunately we could not afford the time during the session to correct it. Although we've lost track time, we will be looking hard at the set-up tonight to improve for tomorrow."