Button disappointed with sixth

"In the pre-qualifying the car was very good, but now I seem to have a lot of oversteer in the car," he said. "As soon as I get on the power at the exits I have a big step of oversteer, especially in the two Lesmos, and also through Ascari so it was pretty tough.

"Obviously we were running more fuel than we were running in pre-qualifying. That had something to do with it I should think. The circuit temperature hasn't changed so that shouldn't have made any difference. I think we can do something from sixth on the grid though."

Sato, who raised his qualifying ratio to 6:9 against the potentially Williams-bound Button, was also a little surprised not to be involved in the fight for pole.

"This is not where we felt we could be on the grid here," he said, "but the close lap times at the front of have shown that it was a very competitive qualifying session.

"I think we can be happy with our performance today and it's good that we have split the Renaults. We tested successfully here last week and the team have really progressed well through the weekend so far. I believe that we should have a strong strategy, and as a result, a good race here tomorrow."

The team's technical director Geoff Willis also pointed to the competitiveness of the qualifying session as an explanation for the team's disappointment: "Today's qualifying was particularly close with less than a second covering the top 10 places on the grid.

"It was a straightforward day and although we are mildly disappointed with the qualifying positions of both our cars, we are happy with the team's overall strong performance. We are confident that we have a good set-up for the race so we shall see how our race strategy unfolds. It is very important for us to finish both cars high up in the points in order to keep closing the gap to Renault."