For the Mercedes GP Petronas team, a partner of national petroleum company, Petronas, noted that the practice session gave a better result compared with the opening round at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia.
Both drivers, Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, experienced good progress of their machines.
"We had a pretty good first day on track here in Sepang. We definitely have taken a step in the right direction. We were closer to our level of performance from Barcelona (winter testing) than in Melbourne. I am hopeful there will be more to come.
"Today, our aerodynamics and our KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems)worked very well and I look forward to more to come in the next two days," said Schumacher, the seven-time world champion from Germany.
He clocked the third fastest time in the morning with a time of 1:39.791s and bettered that time to finish fifth fastest with a time of 1:38.088s in the afternoon session.
His team-mate, Nico Rosberg was in 10th placing in the morning with 1:40.646s but managed to better the time in the afternoon with 1:38.565s for seventh placing.
Team Lotus, it was a different story as the drivers encountered different problems during practice.
"We managed to get through most of the programme but the fact that the traffic held up my quickest lap, masked how we're really looking in outright pace. It's a bit tough as we have had a great build-up to the race here," said Italian Jarno Trulli.
Meanwhile, his team mate, Heikki Kovalainen, who got a taste of the Sepang Circuit in the afternoon session, had to face problems with the rear.
"I went out in the second session and felt something go at the rear, so I came straight back in. It looked like a different problem and despite the fact, the guys worked really hard to get me back out but the time beat us," he said.
Trulli and Kovalainen only managed to clock 1:41.890s and 1:44.886s in the second practice and ended up in 20th and 23rd positions, respectively.
The Lotus Renault GP team also encountered problems with their front suspension in the first practice but after a careful analysis, the team identified a material defect linked to a specific batch of components but later in the afternoon, the team reverted to a different batch and ran without any problems.
"Both Vitaly (Petrov) and Nick (Heidfeld) suffered failures under braking in the front uprights early in the first session. As a precaution, we stopped running the car until we understood the problem.
"We quickly established that the two failed items had come from the same material batch...but once we were confident that the failures were related to a material problem, we released the cars for the second half and they ran without any problem," said the team technical director James Allison.
Heidfeld clocked the 8th fastest time in second practice with 1:38.570s, while Petrov finished in 13th spot on 1:39.267s.
-thestar online.
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