Davidson frustrated by traffic problems

"I'm a bit frustrated with qualifying because I had traffic on my lap on the soft tyre," said Davidson.

"The first run was okay, my banker lap on the harder tyre gave me P12 at that time, so I was confident I could improve on that easily in my second run.

"But the Toro Rosso held me up on his out lap and my flying lap and that was enough to ensure that I didn't improve on my time and didn't make it out of the first session, which is a shame," he added.

Davidson will start the race from 18th position, four places behind teammate Takuma Sato, who was unable to repeat his performance from Australia, where he qualified in the top ten.

The Japanese driver admitted it had been a tough qualifying, especially after the team made the wrong tyre choice early on.

"It was a tough qualifying," admitted Sato. "Having had a difficult free practice session, I missed the opportunity to do the soft tyre run properly in FP3.

"Going into qualifying you really need to focus, and I did the best I could but unfortunately, as a team, we made a mistake for the tyre choice in the first session which knocked my confidence, rhythm and laptime.

"It was very hard to go through Q1, however I re-focussed and we just made it through to Q2. We improved in the second session, but the whole of qualifying was tough.

"We should be happy with our result today, but it could have possibly been better. We are where we expected to be because this is such a demanding circuit, so even though I am slightly disappointed, at the same time I am happy and looking forward to tomorrow with hope."