Kubica laments troubled sessions

The Pole did not manage to set a laptime in the morning after completing just two laps before suffering a fuel leak that forced his mechanics to use fire extinguishers on the rear of his car.

In the afternoon, Kubica suffered from brake issues that meant he spun and nearly hit the wall. Despite that, he finished as 12th quickest.

"This morning we missed some running because of a fuel leak," said Kubica. "After that the car has been quite difficult to drive. At the beginning of this afternoon's running I had brake problems, and I made a mistake because of this.

"I went wide on one corner, spun and fortunately didn't hit the wall that hard so was able to continue. We have done some running, which is good, so we now have to wait to see which way to go with the set-up, because certainly what we have at the moment is not the best."

Teammate Nick Heidfeld had a more straightforward day, posting the fifth quickest time in the afternoon.

"In the morning especially the track had extremely little grip, which made the car very difficult to drive," said Heidfeld. "We then did some set-up changes for the second session, but I'm still not a hundred per cent happy. I didn't get either of the two tyre specs to work properly - neither on a single lap nor on a long run.

"Shortly before the end of the second session I hit the wall with the right hand side of the car at the exit of turn 4. It felt pretty hard. I am surprised the car wasn't damaged.

"Also in the afternoon I went straight on in the chicane because of three guys going very slowly in order to create gaps for a clear lap. That's not a very clever thing to do on a part of the track where one approaches at 300 km/h."