Alguersuari hails Toro Rosso showing

Alguersuari qualified in a career-best seventh position, with team-mate Sebastien Buemi two places behind.

"Getting Sebastien and myself into Q3 is definitely a success for the whole team as it was no easy task," said Alguersuari after qualifying. "We did not really expect to be there, to be honest, looking at the speed of some of our rivals and the red flag in Q2 definitely helped us.

"Tomorrow I think there is a possibility to pick up a good amount of points and I am optimistic because today, we chose a car set-up better suited to the race than to do a quick lap in qualifying.

"It's true we are not used to starting from this position and I might have to run a defensive race and see how our tyres perform, as this will again be a key factor."

Buemi was also delighted for the team, although he admitted he was disappointed not to qualify higher up the grid.

"I am very happy for the team result, with two cars in the top ten," he said. "As for myself, I am a bit disappointed that, for the sake of half a tenth I have dropped from seventh to ninth. The team can be very pleased with this performance and with the result we have not seen for a while.

"Whatever the circumstances today, I know the team has worked very hard at the track and back at the factory to do the very best it can and in general we look much more competitive than we were last year. I hope it will be good enough to get us in the points tomorrow.

"It will be an important race for us, given we have these good grid positions. The first thing will be to make sure we get all the way to the end and if we do that, then I think it could be a good grand prix for us."