Sebastien Bourdais: Our weekend seems to have started off quite well. We have made progress in terms of understanding the car and using it to its best. There is still some work to do, specifically in terms of making better use of the Option tyre. Actually I was quite surprised to see how well they are holding up and they definitely have more than one lap in them. I'm not saying we'll run them for 30 laps, but it's much better than expected. We can definitely see that the small updates we have on the car since Malaysia are working well.

Sebastien Buemi: It's my first time here and beforehand I spent a lot of time on the Red Bull Technology Simulator and it was definitely a big help and I plan to use it more in the future. It is difficult to quantify, but for sure it helps. I had a technical problem in the morning which cost me some time, but everything was back to normal this afternoon and we were able to make a step forward. We look more competitive than in Malaysia and we are definitely improving. I didn't get a perfect lap today, so I think I can do a lot better tomorrow. I like the track; it's very big, very new, very everything!

Here in Shanghai, the Toro Rosso cars are carrying 'Vicini All'Abruzzo' decals as a mark of respect for the victims of the recent earthquake in Italy. Abruzzo is not that far from our Faenza base and the tremors were felt in our home town. The team supports Jarno Trulli's charity initiative. For further information go to abruzzonelcuore.org

To check out our Shanghai practice gallery, click here