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By Andrew Cutler
March 23 2012

With no rain to deal with this time around, the Friday Practice sessions at the Sepang International Circut in Malaysia were a relatively straitforward affair for the Scuderia Toro Rosso squad. Both Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne made improvements over their first sesson times in the second.

Daniel would pick up almost 1.5 seconds, eventually putting down a lap at 1:38.853; 6th fastest of the day. JEV would find just less than a second, logging a circut at 1:39.297; good enough for 11th fastest. Both drivers credited alot of pre-season simulator time with helping them prepare for Sepang, although Vergne noted that; "They don’t have the heating turned to maximum in Milton Keynes!"

"Today was more straightforward than last week, because the weather conditions were stable with a dry track." Chief Engineer Laurent Mekies noted afterwards. "We had a few aero elements to evaluate in the morning and then in the afternoon, we worked on set-up. We spent quite a lot time evaluating the two compounds with both drivers in different conditions. (We) compet[ed] more than a race distance in both cars, in these hot conditions. Tonight’s task is to make the best use of all the data we have gathered, converting it into more performance for Saturday and Sunday.”