Sato laments lack of running

The Super Aguri driver covered just nine laps in the second session and finished at the bottom of the times, over 1.5 seconds behind his teammate Sakon Yamamoto.

"Unfortunately today my running was very limited due to a gearbox problem," said Sato. "It seems that every outing I suffered some related issue and so I couldn't evaluate the car set-up much today.

"This morning the car worked well straight away, but this afternoon I only completed a few laps, so it was not a very good day. The session tomorrow morning will therefore be extremely important, so let's hope we have a better day tomorrow."

Yamamoto's day was not without trouble either, as the Japanese driver was hit by a hydraulic problem in the opening session. Things were better in the afternoon, and he completed 15 laps on his way to the 25th fastest time.

"We had a hydraulic problem with my SA06 this morning so we did not have much time on the circuit and I was only able to complete eight laps," Yamamoto said. "But I pushed quite hard during this session as I wanted to get to know the car and circuit better.

"Although we did not have any problems in the afternoon I did not feel very comfortable with the car and so I didn't have the chance to find a set-up I was happy with.

"Franck did a good job, so we will compare data and speak to the engineers about how we can improve on this situation for tomorrow."