Liuzzi laments severe tyre graining

The Force India driver was unable to move into Q2 after suffering from graining when using the Option tyres, qualifying down in 18th position.

"We suffered with a lot of graining on the soft tyres today," said Liuzzi. "We missed out on the last run in the morning because of a puncture and didn't try the option tyres, but we didn't expect them to grain as badly as they did.

"The first two laps of the final run were good and the first two sectors of the third lap were looking really good - I was on for a 1:38.2 at that point - but then the tyres grained so badly I lost a lot of time through the last two corners as the car started to understeer a lot.

"Based on this wear rate it's going to be an interesting race for sure."

Team-mate Adrian Sutil also had problems with his tyres, but the German fared better and finished in 14th place.

"Although P14 isn't exactly what we would have hoped for, we were still quite close to the top 12 and with a bit of luck could have been even closer to Q3," said Sutil.

"In Q2 I had some traffic on my first lap and then my second was good, but it was tough out there with the tyres."