Second and third fastest was the final outcome of the Friday practice sessions in Malaysia for the Scuderia Ferrari with Felipe Massa (above) finishing just 0.222 seconds ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen. Today's events were watched with his usual keen interest, by Jean Todt (above with Luca Colajanni), whose recent change of responsibilities at Ferrari has been making all the headlines in recent days.

Second and third was the final outcome of the first day of testing for the second race of the season, the Malaysian Grand Prix, for the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team, with Felipe Massa finishing just 0.222 seconds ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen. And the day's events were watched with his usual keen interest, by Jean Todt, whose recent change of responsibilities at Ferrari has been making all the headlines in recent days.

After the unusual park circuit in Melbourne, this is the first time the cars have performed on a "real" track and the wide open spaces, different lines and long corners made a big change for drivers and engineers to deal with. All went well for the "Reds," the only glitch in the day being a misunderstanding within the team which left Kimi parked in his F2008 out on track, without any fuel in the tank. Despite this, Felipe and Kimi, first and second in the morning, racked up a convincing 97 laps over the course of the day.

The honour of topping the time sheets after the two ninety minute sessions went to Australian Grand Prix winner, Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren-Mercedes. Some trends that emerged in the season opener last Sunday showed signs of reconfirmation this weekend. Jenson Button was fourth in what seems to be a rapidly improving Honda, while Sebastian Vettel again showed well, finishing up fifth in the Ferrari-engined Toro Rosso car, while rounding off the top six was the Toyota of Jarno Trulli. As usual in this hot and humid weather, everyone always keeps an eye on the skies. Today, some rain was due to arrive towards the end of the session, but it stayed away. The prospect of a wet qualifying is not something that many people would relish apart maybe from the fans, who would be able to claim they had seen F1 cars performing in the wet without traction control for the very first time.

Over the two free practice sessions for the Malaysian Grand Prix, the two F2008 of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa completed around one hundred laps. The day's technical programme, as usual for a Friday, centred on finding the best set up on the car and a comparison of the two types of tyre brought to the track by Bridgestone. Despite losing a bit of time in the morning session because of a misunderstanding between the pit wall and the garage left Kimi stranded on the track with no fuel, the programme was completely with almost no technical problems.

Stefano Domenicali: "The start of this weekend is reasonably positive. Kimi and Felipe reckoned they were happy with the way the cars went, both over a single lap and on a longer run, with both types of tyre. From what we have seen and considering all the usual Friday unknown quantities, I think we will be competitive in qualifying and in the race."

Felipe Massa: "I am very happy with these two sessions. The car proved to be very quick and consistent on both types of tyre. It's a shame I was unable to get the most out of the second set of soft tyres, when I found myself behind Hamilton who was going slowly. We are working in the right direction for qualifying and the race."

Kimi Raikkonen: "This morning I lost time because of a communication problem within the team, but we made up for it in the second session. The car seems to be going well and I am pleased with the work we have done. I worked mainly on the harder tyres, but I think that even with the softs, from what we have seen, we can be competitive. It is always difficult to say where we are compared to our rivals, but I think we can face the rest of the weekend with confidence."

Luca Baldisserri: "This morning we got our lines of communication mixed up between the garage and the pit wall, which left Kimi stuck out on the track without fuel, but in the afternoon, we were able to get more done, without any technical problems whatsoever. Both drivers found good settings on their cars and we got a lot of data on the behaviour of the two types of tyre. Now we must prepare very carefully for qualifying, because we know how important it is to start from the front. All in all, we are satisfied with the way the first day has gone here in Sepang."

Free practice - First session

F. Massa: 1st 1.35.392 20 laps chassis 267
K. Raikkonen: 2nd 1.36.459 8 laps chassis 268
Weather: air temperature 31 °C, track temperature 38/43 °C, sunny.

Free Practice - Second session

F. Massa: 2nd 1.35.206 33 laps chassis 267
K. Raikkonen: 3rd 1.35.428 36 laps chassis 268
Weather: air 34/32 °C, track 51/43 °C, sunny then cloudy