Happy Liuzzi hindered by lack of power

The Italian driver, however, was pleased with his performance after enjoying a race full of battles with Toyota drivers Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher and later with Red Bull's David Coulthard.

"That was a cool race," said Liuzzi, who finished in tenth place. "On the first lap I was on fire. For the team, to finish ten and twelve from the back of the grid is a good result. It was fun out there, fighting with Jarno, Ralf and David. It was difficult to keep them behind because they were quicker.

"A shame that in the end I was not quick enough to keep the two Toyotas behind me. It would have been a great opportunity for points, but we just did not have the power."

Teammate Scott Speed, who started from the back of the grid after crashing in qualifying, completed a solid weekend for the Toro Rosso team by fighting his way to 12th position.

"The mechanics did an awesome job to get my car rebuilt after my qualifying crash," said the American. "A big thanks to all the team. We drastically screwed up the car set-up for the start, having way too much front wing and just keeping the car on track was a challenge.

"We fixed that in the stop and then in the middle stint it was still a bit too much and by the end it was getting better. At the very beginning, I was catching David, Trulli and Tonio, but it soon went into big oversteer and that was it.

"I also had a problem with my brake balance in the early stages which also hurt my first and second stints, but once we fixed that I was able to get past Albers again."