HRT drivers Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok both came through the first two practice sessions at Sepang on Friday without problems.
New Spanish outfit enjoy first trouble-free Friday
The new Hispania Racing Formula One team further signalled that they are making progress on Friday when Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok both came through the first two practice sessions for the Malaysian Grand Prix without suffering any mechanical problems.
Although all three of F1's new teams have unsurprisingly struggled relative to their established peers since arriving on the grid in Bahrain last month, HRT have consistently finished bottom of the heap after a particularly problematic birth.
The Spanish team went through a restructuring process prior to the new season in an effort to shore up persistent financial problems and, having since changed their name from Campos Meta, they arrived at the opening race without any pre-season testing.
Senna spun off after 17 laps of practice in the Middle East when his wheels came loose, while Chandhok was only able to climb into his car for the first time during qualifying at Sakhir.
Milestone
The Indian rookie did, however, achieve a milestone for the team by managing to take the chequered flag in 14th place last weekend in Australia.
Further signs of progress came at Sepang, with Chandhok completing 51 laps in the opening two practice sessions and Senna 59 - the pair albeit still around seven seconds off the pace set by McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.
"Both sessions were productive and ran as smooth as possible for both Karun and Bruno, who could cover all the planned testing programme while driving the most laps ever in their practice history," team principal Colin Kolles said.
"Technically everything worked well and this is very positive for the team to be running through a normal driving programme with a crew that worked very hard to make all of this happen.
"Now, we need to go beyond and improve the driveability of the car."
Senna added: "We were ready straight away when the first session started and that was a good feeling.
"We managed all programmes, we had no mechanical problems. It is good to have the first 100 per cent reliable day and I'm happy about that."
