Sutil fastest in free practice session

Force India driver Adrian Sutil on Friday recorded the fastest time in the opening free practice session ahead of Sunday's race.

In a positive build up to season opening Grand Prix, Sutil set the fastest lap time with an effort of 1 minute and 56.583 seconds in the first session in which he completed 19 laps at the sun-drenched Sakhir circuit.

In the second session he ran 29 laps and finished in the 12th position with a timing of 1:57.361.

His Italian teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi was seventh fastest in the first practice session after recording 1:57.194 and 14th in the second with a timing of 1:57.833.

Both the Force India drivers were ahead of German legend Michael Schumacher, who is making a comeback from retirement, in the first session.

Schumacher was in the 10th position in the opening session after managing 1:57:662.

Sutil was delighted after the session and has set his sight on Q3 in Sunday's race.

"It's time to race now after so long out of the car! This morning we were checking all the systems and set-up we learnt over testing but nobody really knew where we were going to be.

"It's our goal to get two cars through to Q3 for this weekend and I think we now have a very good baseline with the car and good downforce compared to last year. We can be a top ten runner with this car this year and myself and Tonio are working well together," he said.

Liuzzi was happy to get vital input about the car. "Overall it was a positive day and we got through all the programme. We learnt quite a lot about the car with these kind of hot conditions, which we weren't able to do in the cool of the winter testing.

"The car is reacting well to different fuel loads and to different tyres and overall we can be pretty happy with the results at the end of this first Friday. I think we are in a good way for tomorrow," he said.

Dominic Harlow, the chief race engineer, is confident that team is set for good result in tomorrow's qualifying and Sunday's race.

"Our objectives today were to assess cooling, brakes and tyres for this event whilst working a little on set-up, downforce level and ratio selection and testing a couple of new items on the car in FP1.

"We're pleased with the results and I think that our tyre management in the hot conditions looks good. The circuit changes for this year's race are a definite positive for the event and should make for a good race on Sunday," he said.

Source: Formula 1 | Sutil fastest in free practice session | ESPNSTAR.com