Ralf baffled by qualifying problems

"That was a frustrating session and a disappointing result," admitted the German after qualifying down in 18th position.

"We had some problems on my first flying laps in Q1. Twice my rear tyres locked and we don't know why yet, we will have to investigate. That was why my times were not as good as we expected after my third place in practice yesterday.

"Then we changed tyres and made an adjustment to the front wing but I had a lot of oversteer. The car was nervous in the middle sector and I couldn't push as hard as I wanted to. It was definitely a shame because we had the potential to start much higher.

"We have to analyse what went wrong. In the race anything is possible. Last year I started towards the back and managed to finish seventh because it is possible to overtake on this track. It is a long race so we will wait and see," added the Toyota driver, who had qualified in the top ten in the last three races.

Teammate Jarno Trulli enjoyed a better session to finish ninth, and the Italian is now eyeing a strong result in tomorrow's race.

"It is good to be in the top 10 again and I think it was a positive day," he said. "It was hard work to get into the top 10 because I was struggling a bit with the handling of the car, which did not seem to suit my driving style. I had a bit of a problem under braking and couldn't attack as I wanted to.

"I think we did a good job to get ninth position but, of course, it is always possible to improve, especially because at this circuit overtaking is possible. For tomorrow we are expecting a good result looking at our pace in the last few races.

"I am hoping that from ninth on the grid I can have a good result because I am looking forward to scoring points again. I have high hopes for the race but I hope I do not have the same problems as today."