De la Rosa outpaces troubled Irvine

De la Rosa, who was third fastest in Saturday's first free practice session, will start Sunday's race from 10th on the grid, three places ahead of Ulsterman Irvine and earned the praises of team boss Niki Lauda.

"A good performance by Pedro today, particularly as the times were so close," said Lauda who was instrumental in his hiring in place of Luciano Burti. "Pedro could have gone even better but I think he lost two-tenths on his final run because of a red flag.

"Nevertheless we really cannot expect much more from this package, especially as we have had no major aerodynamic developments since Hungary.

Irvine has been consistently slower than his team mate around the high-speed Italian circuit.

"Unfortunately Eddie has been plagued by rear brake balance problems," continued Lauda. "This causes instability under braking and doesn't lend itself too well to finding a good set-up. Bad luck for Eddie but there is no denying Pedro did an excellent job."

Irvine said the brake trouble was inconsistent and was unable to get to the root of the problem.

"I thought it was gone in the morning," he said, "but it reappeared again in the afternoon. The car is just too twitchy and difficult to control. I'm not happy with 13th. We worked hard to get rid of the problem and I don't understand why it happened again. Braking is everything at a circuit like this and it makes finding a good set-up very difficult. We have to get rid of it before the race."

De la Rosa was delighted by his performance. He said: "That's the best the car has felt all season and don't think I could have got much more out of it."