The Turkish Grand Prix kicked off today with two free practice sessions at the Istanbul Park Circuit on the outskirts of the vibrant city of Istanbul. The Etihad Aldar Spyker Formula One Team had a trouble-free day to complete its programme of fine-tuning set-up, tyre comparison and acclimatising to the dirty, low-grip circuit.

Adrian Sutil and Sakon Yamamoto covered nearly 700km over the day and were particularly closely matched in the second session, which was shortened by half an hour when a drain cover came loose.

Work will continue overnight to optimise the balance of the F8-VII ready for a final one hour practice and Qualifying tomorrow.

Adrian Sutil: Today was a fairly standard Friday practice for us. At first the track was very dirty so we tried to do some longer runs and wait for conditions to improve. Over these runs we checked temperatures and then did some set-up work. The car balance was not quite right as we had a lot of understeer and the tyres are very hard and difficult to use, but we will check the data tonight and do all the normal things to set it up for tomorrow. We should be alright as normally we manage to get a good set-up for the race and I think we should be able to do it here too.

Sakon Yamamoto: Today I am very happy as I got used to the different type of tyre and got more familiar with the car. We also did some long runs with a heavy fuel load, which hopefully is good for the race as I could get a feeling of how the heavier car behaved. We finished our whole programme and I am very satisfied but we will keep working for tomorrow.

Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer: A reasonably productive and useful day, working through the programme with no real issues. We had a difficult first session with the track conditions and low grip on the harder tyre, but both drivers were able to complete their programmes including some long runs. A particularly impressive session from Sakon in the afternoon as in only his second time in the car he matched the pace of his team-mate.

To check out our Turkey practice gallery, click here