Those were the indications from their driver Giancarlo Fisichella, who put in 36 laps on Friday. He was ninth fastest in the second qualifying session in the afternoon for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
The Italian, the winner here in 2006, put up a time of one minute, 36.756 seconds. Fisichella's team-mate Adrian Sutil from Germany, was 18th on the timesheets with a timing of 1:37.614 on this 5.543km circuit. Their morning times were not as good with Fisichella doing a 1:39.046 and Sutil doing a 1:41.269. They were 19th and 22nd respectively.
The second session was obviously the better one. Fisichella was running with a heavy race fuel load but his run was incident-free. Sutil had a minor problem with a piston in his car but that was rectified for the afternoon session and the two were on their way to setting good times.
Meanwhile, McLaren-Mercedes' British driver Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the day in the second session. His 1:35.055, set with just 10 minutes to go for the practice session to end, was better than the time Ferrari drivers Felipe Massa (1:35.206) and reigning world champion Kimi Raikkonen (1:35.428) did in the second session.
If things go his way, Hamilton looks well on his way to grabbing the second win of the season here on Sunday. Renault's Fernando Alonso was way down in 14th place with a time of 1:37.328.
In the morning session, it was Massa (1:35.392), Raikkonen (1:36.459) and Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren-Mercedes, 1:36.556) taking the top three spots, while Hamilton was fifth with 1:36.626. Hamilton was facing gear shift problems but with that sorted out for the afternoon session, he was on the charge.
The hot and humid conditions could be tough on the cars as well as the drivers. There are chances of the car overheating, while for the drivers, it is really an energy-sapping race. It will be a clear case of the fittest, both in terms of the car and the driver, surviving the race.
Rain has been predicted for the next couple of days which makes the whole situation even more unpredictable. With traction control removed from this season, a race in the rain may see many cars going out. Even in the dry conditions at the Australian GP last weekend, only eight cars were finally classified.
So an interesting weekend of racing is in the offing. A good qualifying spot on Saturday will mean Hamilton will get to extend the 10 points he has got after winning in Melbourne, while Ferrari will be looking to put up a better show than in the first round.
Testing time
Meanwhile Force India's test driver Vitantonio Liuzzi put in many laps during his testing sessions as the team did all they can to be competitive here.
Later, Liuzzi said: "We put in about 60 laps on Friday basically to test the tyres. We tested both soft and hard compound tyres.
"With both our drivers looking pretty good, we feel pretty good about the race. But Malaysia is a hard race. There are a lot of corners. It is difficult to race and we can really struggle. If it rains, it will be interesting to see what happens. As for the drivers, they have tested in wet conditions also. Though there will be a lot of downforce even in wet conditions, one needs to be careful.
"The humidity could be an issue for the cars. Even for the drivers, it will be tough," he added.
Force India technical head Mike Gascoyne said: "The day went rather well. It was a little different in the morning. We were testing with different fuel loads. There was a lot of oversteer on both cars and it was very easy to get confused. But we have analysed the problems and made changes.
Sutil's engine was changed but that will not mean he will have start at the end.
"Since it is only Friday practice, we are allowed to change engines. After we had the problem, Ferrari had a look at the engines they have supplied and rectified the problem." He also added that they would be trying out new engines for the Bahrain Grand Prix next.
