Kovalainen sorry for qualifying error

Kovalainen made an error at the final corner of his last flying lap in Q1, losing substantial time and ending the session 17th.

And the Finn made no excuses about his mistake.

"I was very disappointed not to make it out of Q1," he said. "It was simply my mistake; I went too deep into Turn 12, locked the front tyres, got a poor exit and it cost me over six tenths of a second.

"The grip level was poor compared to this morning, but everybody had to deal with the same conditions."

However Fisichella, who qualified 12th, felt the Renault car was simply not strong enough today - and Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds echoed this view.

"I was right on the limit this afternoon, and I think this was our maximum today," Fisichella stated.

"It was hard to do a perfect lap in the slippery, low-grip conditions and it is a shame to miss out on Q3 by such a small margin.

"I think we will see an interesting race tomorrow, especially when it comes to the tyre behaviour, and hopefully we can find a good strategy to take advantage of this."

Symonds added: "We seem to have lost a disproportionate amount of grip this afternoon as the circuit temperatures climbed.

"A small mistake from Heikki was enough to relegate him to the bottom third of the grid on a circuit where the qualifying gaps are always very close.

"Giancarlo got the maximum from the car, but the car's maximum simply wasn't sufficient today."