Kubica left with mixed feelings

The Pole set the fastest time of the week with the innovative Renault R31, which features forward exhausts, but suffered electrical problems on the final morning which meant he didn't really begin his programme until 13:30.

"You could split the day in two parts," said Kubica. "It would be difficult to call it positive because the first real run we managed only to do it at 13:30.

"So after we solved our problems with the car we managed to do a bit of evaluation on set-up and some tyre work. But because of the morning we were unable to complete our programme and we didn't do the laps we targeted.

"But if we have to have some problems with the car or some reliability issues it's better we have them here in Valencia than in Bahrain."

Asked to describe his impressions of the car, which proved 0.2s faster than Fernando Alonso could manage in the Ferrari F150 yesterday he said: "It's impossible to compare the feeling to last year's car but the feeling can depend a lot on how things will look when everybody is in the same condition and everybody is running on the same time.

"We have to keep working and pushing and try to solve the problems we have in Valencia."