Liuzzi proud of Toro Rosso performance

Liuzzi, who scored the team's first point of the year in Japan before being hit with a 25-second penalty, just missed the top ten in today's session, finishing in 11th position.

"Overall a good qualifying and I think the whole team can be proud of this result achieved in dry conditions," said Liuzzi. "Yesterday went well and this morning, we worked hard on getting the best set-up possible, always thinking that we might have a wet race tomorrow.

"In Q1, I had a bit of traffic so I could not get the best out of the car, but we still made it safely to Q2. Maybe I could have done a little bit better if I had made my run later as I had some understeer, but to be eleventh, so close to Q3 means we have done a good job."

Toro Rosso's strong day was completed by Sebastian Vettel's 12th position.

The young German, who had given his team their first top ten in qualifying in Japan last weekend in the wet, admitted he was surprised by the Italian squad's showing.

"This performance was better than we expected," said Vettel. "It is a very good result for the whole team. There was not much between us: in Q1 I was slightly ahead of Tonio and in Q2, he was quicker. The key thing is that we managed to lap consistently.

"I only missed out on Q3 by a little margin, so this is clearly an improvement over yesterday and shows we are quite competitive in qualifying specific. Let's see what we can do in the race. I am looking forward to it whatever the conditions."