Heidfeld disappointed with Renault pace in qualifying in Hungary

The German driver will start from 14th position, claiming he found it very hard to extract anything else from his car.

Heidfeld is hopeful his race pace will be stronger, however, and says he will attack right from the start.

"Today was again not what we would have hoped for; P14 is not in our line of thinking when we step into the garage for qualifying, though perhaps it's an indication of where we stand right now," said Heidfeld.

"At the moment, we are finding it tough to extract more from the car. We'll still be going into tomorrow absolutely fighting for higher positions; gaining some places in the race is very achievable.

"For this to happen, we will need a good start and the right strategy, so we'll be grafting to make both those happen when we line up here tomorrow afternoon."

Team-mate Vitaly Petrov struggled with tyre warm-up during the session, finishing in 12th position.

The Russian conceded Renault has to take a step forward as soon as possible.

"The difficulty we had was warming up the tyres because the weather was so changeable," he said. "I also encountered quite a lot of understeer, especially in turn nine, which cost me two-tenths and practically put an end to my chance of getting in Q3.

"It is this, combined with traction problems that have been our main problems so far this weekend. Sauber is looking increasingly competitive with us now so we need to understand where the problems lie and rectify them because qualifying where we have been recently is not enough; we are more ambitious than that, so the focus will turn to how we make the best out of the situation tomorrow."