Gascoyne encouraged by Spyker progress

Although Sutil's giant-killing performance in the wet morning practice session, when he topped the timesheets, owed everything to the weather - the team were encouraged by the fact he outqualified Ralf Schumacher and Takuma Sato in the dry afternoon session.

"An interesting day for us," said Gascoyne. "Obviously in the wet session this morning we were very pleased to see Adrian at the top of the timesheets and we were hoping for rain this afternoon, but it didn't materialise.

"It's now a case of mixed emotions for qualifying; we had a hydraulic problem on Christijan's (Albers) car which meant he wasn't able to do a timed lap. Adrian had a reasonable session though and was able to qualify ahead of a couple of cars, which shows the progress we have been making.

"We have to wait to see what conditions are like for the race tomorrow, but given Adrian's performance in the wet, we would be quite happy for a wet race. A solid day overall and we hope for the same tomorrow."

Sutil admitted the highlight of his day had been the morning session, when he excelled in the tricky conditions.

"It was very surprising to see my name at the top of the times after practice, but I was obviously very pleased," he said. "I had the perfect run.

"In qualifying later my first set of tyres were OK, but the track was not quite in so I took it a little bit easy as I hadn't used the soft tyres and didn't know what to expect. The second lap was very good and on the third I was really on the edge.

"The tyres performed very well and I was very close to P17. I did a good first sector, but then the tyres dropped down and I couldn't do the same again. It was a good day though and I hope in the race I can push back to the front."

Albers was far unhappier with his day, after an hydraulics problem meant he was unable to complete a flying lap in qualifying.

"It was a bad day for me and it's a shame for the team that we couldn't do more," he said. "This morning I had some issues and now in the qualifying with the hydraulic problem.

"It's sad I couldn't take advantage of the conditions but I am sure we'll get on top of them for tomorrow and have a good race."