Hamilton still eyeing points from 12th

Hamilton, who had won and finished second in the last two races, had to settle for 12th position on the grid as his car showed its deficits on high-speed corners.

The McLaren driver said he extracted the maximum from his McLaren, and he is still eyeing a points finish tomorrow.

"We did the best job we could today," said Hamilton. "We'd always known the car would struggle in the mid-sector corners: being one second down in the mid-sector shows the true downforce level of our car.

"We expected that we wouldn't have as good an aero package as some of the others - we just didn't know to what extent. I guess today we found out.

"But I'm not too disappointed - this year has been a rollercoaster ride for everyone, but I'm enjoying it still and I love driving this track. My plan for tomorrow is a points finish."

Heikki Kovalainen, 15th toady, said his team was expecting a tough day, as it was the case.

"This morning, we started to become a little surprised by the pace of some of the other cars," he said. "We were struggling in the high-speed corners a little more than in either Hungary or Valencia, where the circuit configurations are slower.

"We expected today to be tough and our results show we are still lacking in high-speed efficiency, downforce and straight-line speed.

"Still, it was very close today; there was quite a bit of traffic in the session and, with just a couple more tenths, we could have made it into Q3. I'll be racing hard tomorrow and I feel confident we can go forwards from here.

"Nevertheless, we know where we are and we're not down because of this. We've shown progress compared with Silverstone and we'll keep pushing to improve on our issues."