Heikki Kovalainen says 17th was the best possible Belgian GP grid spot he could achieve

The Finn was helped by Michael Schumacher crashing before setting a time in Q1, and by the changeable weather conditions during the session, but still went quicker than Paul di Resta's Force India and Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber in the initial section of qualifying to make it through in 16th.

He then fell back to 17th in Q2, but was only 0.2s slower than Pastor Maldonado's Williams, and was a satisfied man afterwards.

"I think we can be very pleased with the performance today," Kovalainen said. "That last lap in Q1 was as much as I could get out of the car and to get back into Q2 is obviously a great result for the whole team.

"We had the right plan for the conditions, put it into action on track and it paid off. I don't think I could have got any more out of the package today, so finishing where we did goes down as objective achieved for today.

Kovalainen, who has not finished higher than 14th this year, is less optimistic of carrying his qualifying form into the race, especially as dry weather is predicted for Sunday.

"It looks like it'll be a dry race tomorrow, and I think the key for us is to make sure both cars finish," he added.

"If we can do that, be there to take advantage of anything that happens, and leave Spa having got into Q2 and had a solid race, this will go down as a good weekend for us."