Lewis Hamilton squeezed in the fastest lap of the day in practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix yesterday, while Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen helped Ferrari put a turbulent week behind them.
Massa topped the morning timesheets with a quickest lap of 1:35.392 around the Sepang circuit, but McLaren's Hamilton denied the Brazilian a sweep of the two sessions with a late 1:35.055 in the afternoon.
"I'm pretty happy with today's results as the car showed consistent pace throughout the session and good overall speed," said the 23-year-old Hamilton, who was fifth fastest in early practice.
"Unfortunately the morning session wasn't perfect as I had a slight problem on the car right at the end, but this didn't really have any effect on our planned programme of tyre evaluation and race set-up work."
After suffering their worst start to a Formula One campaign since 1992 in Australia last week, when neither Massa nor Raikkonen reached the chequered flag, the pressure was on the red cars to deliver convincing performances.
Massa ended the second session 0.151 seconds behind Hamilton, the winner in Melbourne, with world champion Raikkonen third quickest and 0.373 seconds off the pace.
"I am very happy with these two sessions," said Massa, who started last year's race at Sepang on pole position.
"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."
Jenson Button (Honda), Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso) and Jarno Trulli (Toyota) delivered eye-catching performances in the afternoon by finishing fourth, fifth and sixth quickest, while McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen was only seventh.
Vettel, who crashed out at the first turn in Australia, was pleased with the Toro Rosso's performance but was not getting carried away.
"Lap times don't always tell the full story, but I think we can be happy with the afternoon," said the German.
His French team-mate Sebastien Bourdais, who finished in the points on his Formula One debut in Australia, struggled in the early session and his afternoon practice ended after only one lap due to engine problems.
Robert Kubica (BMW), Giancarlo Fisichella (Force India) and Japanese rookie Kazuki Nakajima (Williams) rounded out the top 10.
David Coulthard sat out the afternoon practice after an accident in the first session left his Red Bull with substantial damage.
The Scotsman, who failed to finish in Australia after a collision with Massa left his car badly damaged, bounced hard over a kerb and ploughed into a gravel trap.
Red Bull said they had decided to withdraw him from the second practice session to make sure the car was in proper condition for qualifying today.