Force India predicts qualifying 'lottery'

"Today we were very satisfied with the pace of our longer runs and the positions in both sessions were encouraging," said Mallya following Friday practice.

"However what we have seen is that the speed difference between the cars - sometimes up to five seconds - will make qualifying a lottery."

The Indian nonetheless reckons his team has the speed to reach the top ten on Saturday.

"We believe we have the potential to be right up there fighting for Q3 but we'll have to see how it goes in on Saturday," he added. "The right ingredients are there, we just need them to mix together in the right way."

Adrian Sutil posted the eighth fastest time of the day, the German also encouraged by his car's pace.

"It was a very good day for me," he said. "I'm very happy with my performance and with the car. The set-up was really good and we didn't have to make any major changes over the day, which means there is not so much work for tomorrow and Saturday's final practice.

"The car is going very consistently and I could set good lap times so the end classification looks promising, but we can also be very satisfied about the pace of the long runs. We didn't have many problems with the tyre compounds here, just a bit of graining on the soft one, but it's under control and nothing to worry about.

"Overall I think we look pretty strong for a practice day and can be confident going into qualifying."

Team-mate Tonio Liuzzi finished down in 15th position.