Klien sorry to miss out on top 10

The Red Bull driver, facing an uncertain future at the Ferrari-powered team after scoring just one point so far this year to teammate David Coulthard's 10, surprised the favourites this morning by finishing on top of the timesheets.

However, he was unable to get close to matching his performance in qualifying, finishing down in 12th.

"I expected to be in the top ten today, as this morning was so good, but I finished the second qualifying stint just one tenth away from it," said Klien. "It's a bit of a shame that I didn't improve on my second new tyre run - I had a little bit of traffic.

"The car was well balanced, so I was pretty happy, and the tyres worked well meaning we were quite competitive. From P12 on the grid, we still should have a good race tomorrow."

Coulthard, on the other hand, made it to the final part of qualifying, but the Scot was disappointed not to be able to fight to improve him position.

"It's great to get through to the top ten, it's just disappointing that once we're there, that's where we stay, in tenth," he said. "I'd no fresh tyres remaining in the last qualifying stint, so I wasn't able to attack so much. The nature of this circuit makes it tricky to drive in some of the turns.

"The high-speed entries to Turn one and the stadium are followed by very short apexes, so how you commit to that first phase of the circuit can be tricky to judge. It's difficult to nail the exact position that you need to take. But, other than that, a solid day today."