Red Bull Struggling, Says Coulthard

Liuzzi, who had been the first man out on the track during first qualifying, complained about poor grip under braking for the Tamburello chicane on his lap and warned teammate Coulthard about the problem.

Aware of the problem, Coulthard then lost too much time by being too cautious through the corner.

Coulthard said: "Not really a good one this afternoon. I was a bit cautious going into Turn 1, because Tonio had said he picked up some understeer there and if you overshoot there, you can lose about half a second. So although  the  rest  of  the  lap  wasn't  too  bad,  I'd  already  lost the  time.  Generally,  we  seem  to  be struggling a bit here."

Liuzzi, who is making his F1 debut this weekend, added: "I am reasonably happy with my lap, but as I was going out first the track was really dirty.
 
"In the first chicane it was difficult and the car was tricky to stop when braking. But for the rest of the track it was good. I was quite happy but unfortunately we are too slow and also I actually think I might have lost half a second because of the dirt. "

Although the driver errors clearly played their part in Red Bull's poor showing, the team believe that their form will now be slightly less impressive than it had been at the start of the season as the other teams ramp up their development programmes.

Technical director Gunther Steiner said: "Nothing else then expected - we are too slow and this is where we stand now in comparison with the other teams. It is not a very good position to be in when you consider our performance in the previous three races, and it is obviously difficult to get better. We have to have faith in our strategy and hope we can improve with this."