Mercedes said it was closer to the pace it showed in testing than in Australia following Friday practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix.undefined
Having been off the pace in Melbourne due to what were described as set up difficulties, Mercedes had an improved showing at Sepang with both cars in the top ten of both practice sessions. Michael Schumacher was third fastest in FP1, and said the team can still progress further.
"We had a pretty good first day on track here in Sepang," Schumacher said. "We definitely made a step in the right direction, we were closer to our level of performance from Barcelona than in Melbourne, and I am hopeful there will be more to come. We had two typical Friday sessions, trying out a lot of things for future developments, and it looks we can make further improvements. Today, our aerodynamics and our KERS system worked very well, and I look forward to more to come in the next two days."
Team-mate Nico Rosberg was also pleased, but warned that Mercedes still had problems that need to be resolved.
"Today was a productive day for us," Rosberg said. "We made progress on our set-up work compared to the last race and the team worked well. There are still issues that we have to solve, but I think we are a bit closer to the pace. I'm now looking forward to qualifying and we will look to take another step forward tomorrow."
Ross Brawn was happy with what he described as "a more positive start to the race weekend", but said that the team would have plenty of work to do overnight as it looks to find some more speed when carrying a heavy fuel load.
"We have had a much better day here than we experienced in Melbourne," Brawn said. "There are some issues which we need to look into and resolve but it is, without doubt, a more positive start to the race weekend. Our basic lower fuel pace looks reasonable. We need to improve the race pace as the car wasn't consistent enough and that will be the focus for our work tonight."
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