The exciting aspect for the Toyota team is that today's low-fuel single-lap qualifying is the first of the year to reflect the true pace of the respective cars, with Australia's corresponding session afflicted by varying weather conditions.

Trulli took his TF105 around the demanding 5.543km Sepang circuit in 1m32.672s, just 0.09s behind the Mild Seven Renault of provisional pole position man Fernando Alonso. Panasonic Toyota Racing team mate Ralf Schumacher was not far behind, his 1m33.106s lap good enough for fifth place. The final positions will be determined by a second Sunday morning session with race fuel levels, with the Saturday/Sunday times aggregated to form the race grid.

"It is a good result and a genuine one," Trulli said. "We have been competitive throughout the meeting, we have a good aerodynamic update from the factory and we are moving ahead well. It was what I expected at the start of the season, the car feels easy to drive and hopefully we will have a good race pace as well."

Schumacher added: "We are strong and competitive. I had a little bit of understeer in Turn 1 but apart from that there were no problems and I am looking forward to building on a good start to the weekend."

Trulli's time was good enough to split the Renaults, with Melbourne winner Giancarlo Fisichella third fastest with a lap in 1m32.765s. Kimi Raikkonen (1m32.839s) was fourth quickest for West McLaren Mercedes with Ralf fifth and Mark Webber's (1m33.204s) BMW Williams F1 Team car completing the top six.

Team Technical Director Chassis, Mike Gascoyne, is hopeful that the team can challenge for pole position and a podium finish.

"I'm delighted for the whole team and everyone back at the factory," he said. "We endured a lot of criticism last year, quite rightly, but this has been the first dry low-fuel session and you can see the strength of the car. I'm very pleased but we have only done a third of the job. We will have to have a careful look at the race strategy but we are less than a tenth of a second away and are now racing to get the car on pole.

"The tyres have been absolutely perfect this weekend, working very well for us. Reliability is always a worry here given the high temperatures (track temperatures again exceeded 50 degrees Celsius) but we have no issues. It's a tremendous step forward for the team. After winter testing some people were suggesting that the TF105 was not, but we were always very confident in it. We knew what we were doing in testing and knew what the development programme was. I think we can be vindicated in the way we've done it and a few results like this ease the pressure on the whole team. We now know we've got a car to go racing for the podium, if not the victory."