Liuzzi not downbeat despite lack of pace

The Italian Toro Rosso driver admitted on Friday he was expecting a tough weekend for his team, and that was confirmed on Saturday, when he could only set the 19th fastest time of the day.

Liuzzi, however, remains positive the team will take a step forward soon.

"As we saw yesterday it was quite difficult to find a good balance," said Liuzzi. "I am disappointed not to have made it through to Q2 but the gap to those ahead is really small and in fact the gaps all the way from the top are close.

"I am not getting downhearted because I know we have major improvements on the way and we just have to do the best we can with what we have until they come on stream.

"I think at the moment we are getting the maximum out of this car and are not too far behind those just ahead of us. It's going to be a long hard race but I plan to keep fighting to the end."

Teammate Scott Speed completed a disappointing day for Toro Rosso, the American qualifying down in 20th.

"After yesterday's practice we knew we were going to struggle in qualifying," he said. "The guys in front of us are not so far away and we made some big improvements on the car just before qualifying, so at least I am going into the race with a much better car than I had earlier.

"We are quick down the straight because we have to be set up like this as we are down on acceleration and so need to take off a lot of wing. The trade off is that we are sliding a lot in the infield section.

"But maybe this will give us a race car we can do something with tomorrow. Our reliability so far this weekend has been okay and I hope that continues."