Liuzzi happy with Toro Rosso's progress

The Italian driver was downbeat in the season-opener in Australia, lamenting the team's lack of pre-season testing.

But things were somewhat better for the team on Saturday, with Liuzzi getting the best from his car to qualify in 16th position.

"It's quite good to make it into Q2, but unfortunately we still do not have the pace to go to Q3," said Liuzzi.

"We are learning and improving every time we go out on track and we have already made a step forward from the last race and we will continue to improve.

"Tomorrow afternoon we will not have an easy race with the hot conditions, but today I think I got the maximum out of this car. I think we can run better in tomorrow's race than we did in the last one, because we are using a bit more of the car's potential, but it won't be easy."

Teammate Scott Speed was also encouraged by Toro Rosso's progress, despite failing to extract the maximum from his car on the way to 17th place on the grid.

"We have definitely made a step forward with the car this weekend, which is good," the American said.

"But I did not manage to get everything out of it on my last run, as I made a mistake in the final corner. Without that, maybe I could have also got through to the second session.

"In any case, our pace is better, even though we have a long way to go. I think that as far as tomorrow's race is concerned, maybe we can run a bit more competitively than we did in Melbourne."