Sato mystified by lack of pace

"We need to find out what was wrong with the car. It was not performing well and I never got comfortable grip or stability," said Sato after qualifying down in 21st place.

"It is disappointing as yesterday we made some progress and this morning we tried to improve the performance again for qualifying, but the speed was not there.

"On my final lap I was trapped by the Yellow Flag, so I could not improve on my laptime, so I am disappointed."

Anthony Davidson was unable to avoid a poor day for the Super Aguri team, the Briton also failing to make it past the first qualifying segment.

"It was obviously a disappointing qualifying session," Davidson, 19th today, said. "It was always going to be tough trying to get into Q2 today.

"The car again did not quite have the speed like we saw in Magny-Cours, but I was confident that I could have pulled something out of the bag, until the last run, when I came out in a sea of traffic ahead of me on the opening of my lap as they came out of the pits, so I decided to abort the lap.

"I tried to find a good space and get a bit more heat into the rear tyres, but basically I overcooked it coming out of Brooklands, trying to get as much force into the tyres as possible and the car snapped on me.

"I still believe that we have a better race car than qualifying and you never know, the British weather can be unpredictable, so I am looking forward to my first British Grand Prix tomorrow."