Drivers fear track will break up in race

Workers have been applying chemicals to the track at Turn 2 to help matters there, while resurfacing work was carried at the hairpin overnight following the troubles in qualifying there.

But after the drivers inspected the track during their parade lap on Sunday morning, a number of them are predicting further trouble in the race.

David Coulthard told autosport.com: "It looks pretty patchy, as you can imagine. It's patchy at the hairpins but I don't see any patches at Turn 7 where Mark (Webber) had his qualifying incident and where it was definitely breaking up yesterday. I think the track is going to be breaking up in the race."

Nick Heidfeld said: "Turn 10 looks dodgy, I would call it. There is a lot of white stuff everywhere and Turn 2 is still completely wet with whatever they've done to it. It has not dried yet, so I don't know how it should work.

"We have had similar problems in the last few years. Two years ago they tried to repair it and I guess partly it was with the same stuff and it didn't last. It was better for some laps and then it broke up as well, so I guess it will happen again."

Grand Prix Drivers' Association director Mark Webber told autosport.com that the situation was not helped by further incidents and accidents in the support races this morning.

"The track is in a mess, obviously. Desperate times call for desperate measures, mate," he explained. "When you've got gentlemen racers driving Ferraris around before we go out, it doesn't help things.

"The long and short of this place is people make mistakes, so there's lots of coolant, oil bust and stuff on the track.

"Now they're trying to patch it in sections. It certainly doesn't look like four kilometres of beautiful asphalt. It all looks messy, but if it does the job then great. We can drive around, but it's going to be hard to pass because the marbles are massive."

Robert Kubica, who along with Heidfeld jumped out of his car on the parade lap to inspect the track at Turn 2, said: "There are different patches in the first few corners.

"At the hairpin it's very dusty and very dirty because they've put white stuff on it. Also Turn 1 and 2 is new asphalt, which is very oily. We will see. It will be a tough race."

Toyota's Timo Glock added: "It looks quite okay now, but I don't know how it will react to the Formula One cars. They've cleaned it up, but I don't think it will survive for long at Turns 7 and 10.

"It will be tricky now they've put some new patches on in Turn 2 as well. It looks like it's falling apart."