Gascoyne defends Spyker's upgrade

The team were absent from last week's test at Sepang in order to work in the wind tunnel on their updated car, which Gascoyne expected to be a significant improvement over the one used in Australia.

But Gascoyne's hopes did not materialise, as Christijan Albers and Adrian Sutil qualified 21st and 22nd respectively.

The technical chief, however, said the upgraded package has made a difference in their performance.

"Although being at the back of the grid is never a great result, we can see the aero upgrade we brought to the track has made a difference," said Gascoyne. "It's just one step in our development cycle, and we will keep working on it throughout the year.

"This weekend though we've suffered being only team that hasn't tested at the circuit - we've been playing catch up too much and yesterday it was hard to find a clear direction to follow.

"We looked at everything overnight and Christijan found his car significantly better today and was much happier with the balance, Adrian less so, but with the experience we've now gained from these four sessions our race pace tomorrow can only be better."