Fernando Alonso made a positive start to this weekend's Malaysia Grand Prix despite running in two shortened free practice sessions.
The start of this morning's FP1 session was delayed by half an hour after heavy rain rendered the track too wet for running while afternoon practice was red-flagged with around 15 minutes remaining when Romain Grosjean's car was damaged after he hit a loose drain cover at Turn 12.
Nevertheless, the Spanish racer made excellent progress in each session, with an upgrade package on Fernando's car helping him to an impressive fifth-fastest time in FP2.
“We had a good day today. In the first session, we checked a few things on the car. We went out when the track was a bit less wet and managed to put it in third position… which was nice,” he said.
“In the second session, on a dry track, the car continued to behave well, and we had no big things we need to change for tomorrow.”
“We tried several different configurations, and they proved all positive, so we need to go through the data tonight to decide what to do. The car feels good on this circuit, with a lot of grip when using the Supersoft tyre.”
“We missed some running due to the red flag at the end of the second session, but that happened to most of the teams. We'll try to catch up with that work tomorrow in FP3, if it doesn't rain.”
