Davidson hopes for dry race

The Super Aguri driver had to settle for 19th position after admitting his car simply did not have enough pace in the tricky conditions.

"It is disappointing not to get through to Q2," Davidson said. "I felt that I did everything right with regard to tyre choice in the session.

"The car basically did not have the pace in these conditions, which is a shame as I felt as though I drove a clean lap and got the most out of the car.

"I hope that we have dry conditions tomorrow because we know the car worked well yesterday, so if it is dry we should be able to have a good race."

Teammate Takuma Sato also endured a disappointing day, the local hero qualifying in the final row after finding his car did not have any grip.

"We were fortunate that we were able to run in qualifying today with such foggy conditions," said Sato. "During the first few minutes my pace was competitive, but I wasn't happy with the balance and so came back to the pit. Unfortunately I was also called to the weigh bridge and that cost me a bit of time.

"However, in the second outing, we didn't have any grip at all and it was a real shame because if we could have kept up our pace from the first outing to the end we were looking strong.

"Obviously we need to understand why we could not improve our time as this is so important before our race start tomorrow."