Liuzzi laments troubled practice

The Toro Rosso driver covered just 12 laps in the morning session and nine in the afternoon after suffering problems with his car's handling.

Liuzzi, who has retired nine times this season, finished at the bottom of the times.

"I started the morning with problems with the balance on the car and big understeer in the medium and slow speed corner," said Liuzzi. "We had this situation for my first three runs. Then the session ended when the front locked up in corner 8, which put me off the track.

"At the start of the second session, it felt like I was in a completely different car as it had gone the opposite way to the morning, with the car feeling very light in the rear, but much more driveable.

"I had a strong first run, but on my out lap for my second run, I had to stop because of a problem with the rear end of the car, which we are investigating."

Teammate Sebastian Vettel, running at Spa in Grand Prix machinery for the first time, had a better day, posting the 18th fastest time.

"I did not test here for BMW in the summer, so this is my first time here in a Formula One car and the circuit seems very different to the way it did when I last raced here in Formula Three and World Series," said Vettel.

"This is a bit faster! I like the track: Eau Rouge is very nice but my favourite is the double left, Pouhon at Turns 10 and 11.

"We did a lot of laps today so I think this was a good day. Unfortunately, Tonio was unable to contribute much data because of the problem on his car. As usual, it is hard to have a clear picture as we don't know what fuel loads the others were running."