Trulli blames low temperature for struggle

The Italian will start the race from 11th position, his first qualifying effort outside the top ten in the last four races, after he struggled to get his tyres up to the proper temperature during the session.

Toyota driver Trulli admitted he was expecting a difficult day given the Belgian weather.

"We knew we would be struggling a bit today given these low temperatures and it was a difficult qualifying for us - this has been the trend of the weekend so far unfortunately," said Trulli.

"It was very hard to get the temperature into the tyres in order to make them work properly so it is then not easy to judge the car balance.

"As well as that I am on the second race with my engine and that is particularly important here because you have the long straights. Normally on the second race the engine loses a little bit of power and here this makes a difference to the laptime.

"But tomorrow is another day and I will do my best. The only positive point is that we can choose our strategy just before the race."

Teammate Timo Glock suffered the same problems with his tyres, the German having to settle for 13th position.

"It was quite a difficult session for me today," Glock said. "In practice we were struggling a bit to bring the tyres to the right temperature and we suffered from this again in qualifying. It was particularly hard to get the heat into the tyres on my first flying lap, so we were not able to get the result we wanted.

"We are not getting the performance out of the tyres in these conditions and it is difficult to get a feeling for the car when that happens.

"It was really tricky to get it right today and it's hard to see it changing dramatically tomorrow; maybe the temperature rises a bit or it rains, you never know here.

"It would be good for me if it was wet because I like those conditions and our car performs well if there is a bit of rain. We will have to wait and see but whatever happens we will push as hard as we can to achieve the best possible result."