Wurz stays cautious despite fast start

The Austrian, returning to Grand Prix action this season after six years as a tester, finished as sixth quickest in the afternoon session in Melbourne, completing a strong day for the British squad.

Williams, powered by Toyota engines this year, are hoping to bounce back from their worst season in Formula One.

But despite their strong showing on Friday, Wurz believes the team's goals for qualifying should be more modest.

"In the morning it was wet and I didn't really like the session," Wurz told reporters after practice. "It was slippery and we only had one set of inters. But it was the same for everyone and it really depended when you were out.

"In the second session, it started off not so well and didn't have a good balance so we made changes on the car and that made it a bit better. We did a longer run that didn't look that bad, new rubber and so on, and extracted quite a decent lap time.

"But I want to be cautious, but I don't think position six is where we can be in qualifying. It will be ultra hard for us to come into the top ten. I am just being careful and today you cannot really analyse the field."

He added: "I haven't really looked at what the others were doing. Did everyone put new tyres on at the end? How much fuel did they have? I have to analyse the long runs of the others and I haven't done that yet."

Wurz admitted he was pleased to be back as a race driver this year, the Austrian not competing in a full season since 2000 with Benetton.

"Yeah, it is good. It is different. And also it is the first race of the season, so there is some attention, and I missed that," he said.