Adrian Sutil could not scorch the time-sheet but clocked up more than 600 kms, testing tyre compounds and conducting race simulations to kick off Force India's second official test session at the Circuit de Catalunya.
Sutil turned in 129 laps with a best time of 1min 22.452, which placed him eighth among the 10 drivers, better than Williams' Kazuki Nakajima and McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen.
"I feel quite confident and pleased with the progress we made," Sutil later said.
"I think 129 laps is a good achievement and we got a lot more data. We simulated a race and qualifying and actually it felt good. We did a long run, which was very important to see how the tyres react over this distance," he said.
"I feel actually much more prepared for Melbourne, but let's see if we can improve our times as the track conditions in the morning were not ideal," added the German.
Technical director James Key was particularly happy as there was no reliability issues with the new car.
"Unfortunately the qualifying sims were a bit of a compromise due to stoppages and we missed the windows with the tyres on both occasions, but overall the car performed well and was very reliable, completing 129 laps in total, obviously a very big improvement on last week and shows we have overcome the initial reliability issues," he said.
The outfit, however, had some tyre issues to address, he said.
"We learnt quite a lot about the tyre performance over the longer runs. We have a little more work to do on bringing the tyres in at the moment as they seem to be consistent on the longer outings but less so on the shorter runs. Otherwise it's been a very productive day with a few aero checks and set-up changes at the end," Key said.
Sutil will be behind the VJM02 wheel again on day two before paving way for his Italian teammate Giancarlo Fisichella who will do the duty for the final two days.
