Buemi surprised to fall back

The STR pair had both reached Q3 in China three weeks ago, but at Istanbul Park Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari will start only 16th and 17th.

"It's a bit hard to understand why we are so far off," said Buemi, who was 10th in final practice.

"I would say that this morning, the track was quicker for us and I am not sure why I could not do the same lap time this afternoon as I managed in the morning. Maybe it's down to the drastic increase in temperature that we seem to have lost some grip.

"Overall, I am therefore disappointed with this qualifying session as I feel we could have done better and maybe been higher up on the grid, as one tenth of a second would have made a big difference."

Alguersuari was relatively happy as he had opted to only do one run in Q2 to save tyres for the race.

"All things considered, this is not such a bad result as at least we have saved a set of new tyres for the race which is a positive point," he said.

"Maybe we could have improved the balance of the car on another set, as it changed a lot from this morning to the afternoon, which was down to the change in temperature and track condition. I did not do so much running in the morning which obviously did not help.

"But I must be positive and am looking forward to having a good race tomorrow as we have enough tyres to do well, so let's see what happens."