Lotus driver Kimi Räikkönen believes that his team is in a strong position following Friday's opening pair of practice sessions at Sepang, with the Finn continuing from where he left off on the streets of Melbourne by topping the combined timesheets.
Having run 'pretty heavy' fuel loads throughout the day, Räikkönen sees no reason to suggest that he will not be competitive in Saturday afternoon's qualifying session.
"It was a pretty good day," said Räikkönen. "We tried changing things on the car and made progress with where we wanted to be at the end of the sessions.
"We had some running in the wet which you often get around here and the car feels fine. We ran pretty heavy today so I don't know how we'll be when everyone is light for qualifying, but I'm happy with where we are and expect we'll be reasonable tomorrow."
On the other side of the Lotus garage, Romain Grosjean experienced a more challenging day. The Frenchman struggled to find a balance with his E21 chassis, which is not running all of the upgrades currently applied to Räikkönen's car.
"We're still working on the setup of the car as it's not quite right for me and it's difficult to understand why exactly," said Grosjean. "The new front wing does feel better than the one before so that helps. Kimi was running an updated aero package which looks to be an improvement so we know there's more pace to come in that area."
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  K. Raikkonen | Lotus | 01:36.569 | 28 |
| 2. | S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:36.588 | 27 |
| 3. | F. Massa | Ferrari | 01:36.661 | 33 |
| 4. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:36.985 | 23 |
| 5. | M. Webber | Red Bull | 01:37.026 | 29 |
| 6. | R. Grosjean | Lotus | 01:37.206 | 26 |
| 7. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 01:37.448 | 32 |
| 8. | P. di Resta | Force India | 01:37.571 | 30 |
| 9. | L. Hamilton | Mercedes | 01:37.574 | 32 |
| 10. | A. Sutil | Force India | 01:37.788 | 10 |
| Full results | ||||
| Kimi Räikkönen | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Kimi Räikkönen photos | |||
| Romain Grosjean | |||
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| More Romain Grosjean photos | |||
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