Alguersuari unfazed by criticisms

The 19-year-old Spaniard will become the youngest driver to compete in a grand prix on Sunday, but his lack of experience in F1 machinery has caused some drivers to criticise his debut, saying he is too young.

Alguersuari fared well on Friday, however, finishing less than eight tenths of a second behind Toro Rosso team-mate Sebastien Buemi and without any significant mistakes.

The Spanish driver said he was just focusing on driving and ignoring the criticisms, as he denied he was a danger to others on track.

"I don't really care what all the people say, I just do my work," said Alguersuari after practice. "I do what I know, to be honest. I am here because Red Bull just asked me to, as I do Formula 3 or world series or GP2, I don't care. I just drive the cars.

"That's my job and that's what I enjoy doing in life. I'm here because Red Bull just sent me a message telling me that I have to drive this car so I'm here."

He added: "I don't care what other people say, that's the main thing, first of all. And the second thing is that I know what my expectation is, I know what my target is. I know that today I didn't make any mistakes and I hope tomorrow I don't and even in the race and that's how I work at the end.

"My target here is to drive the car and not make mistakes. Then we will talk about times and about speed. But I don't feel I am a danger, not really."

Alguersuari, slowest in both practice sessions, said he was proud of his performance and he reckons he could have gone quicker.

"I feel proud for sure, I think I did a quite good job, I'm quite happy and I am more motivated than yesterday for sure because I know now the car, the track and a little bit the championship," he said.

"I am looking forward to the race which is the main thing and we will see how it goes."

He added: "I think we did a quite good job because we did so many laps and we didn't make any mistakes. That was the target and it was accomplished so I was quite happy for that. Then in the second session we would have gone a little bit faster at the end but obviously I couldn't get a lap with low fuel and option tyres but I think it was quite good.

"The consistency is there and I got a feeling for the car, that's the main thing. For sure high speed corners I still need to improve quite a lot because obviously the confidence is not there. But I think step by step, we will get there and up to speed."