Fisichella does better than Sutil in practice

The German put in 33 laps in the second practice but still reported a lack of grip in the warmer temperatures of the afternoon.

Fisichella finished 19th in the first session and 18th in the second. The Italian completed his programme with 27 laps in the morning and 42 in the afternoon.

With a best lap of 1:17.394, Fisichella was 18th fastest in the second session, just over 1.5secs from the fastest time of the afternoon.

“The grip level was quite poor in both sessions and we had some understeer in the high speed corners. We also compared the tyres and the softer compound works OK, but it will still be a difficult weekend,” Fisichella said.

Sutil too admitted it was not a great day for him. “I was struggling under braking, and this morning I lost a lot of the session. In the afternoon the track was slower as the temperature increased and it was difficult to get the tyres to work well again, but now we have found the problem and can get it fixed for tomorrow,” he said.

Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne said it was a typical first day, doing the normal programme of set up work and tyre evaluation.

“Adrian struggled a bit with the car under braking all day and we will need to work on this tomorrow. We nevertheless managed to complete our programme with no major issues. The tyre position looks fairly clear now and we have established a fair set-up, so overall a reasonable first day for us,” he said.