Coulthard unhappy with final F1 qualifying

The Red Bull Racing driver, who will retire from the sport after tomorrow's race, qualified in 14th position after he struggled with his car in the middle part of the Interlagos circuit.

Coulthard admitted he was expecting better following last year's strong showing at the track.

"I'm not really happy with that as my last F1 qualifying session," said the Scot. "We went reasonably well here last year and got into the top ten, so we came here thinking that might be possible again. But, in the end, we didn't manage to find enough grip in the middle sector.

"We are reasonably competitive in the first and last sectors, but in the middle we're struggling, as the rear has been sliding, which loses us laptime.

"The tyres suffer a lot with graining here on the longer runs, we were hoping to keep it together for one lap and then do what we could in the race. Let's see what we can do from there tomorrow."

Teammate Mark Webber also had a difficult day, failing to make it to the top ten. The Australian had to settle for 12th.

"That was a disappointing day for us," Webber said. "We had a pretty good run yesterday, but we always knew it was going to be tight round here in terms of times and unfortunately we didn't have enough pace to get through to Q3.

"I did the best I could, but it's simple - if you're not fast enough you don't go through."