Sauber disappointed with performance

Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi qualified 14th and 16th respectively for tomorrow's race, identical positions to those they managed at the season-opening Bahrain GP, and Sauber feels they should have done better.

"P14 and P16 in qualifying don't meet our expectations, therefore we cannot be satisfied," he said.

"I think that today we didn't really exploit the full potential of the car."

Technical director Willy Rampf added: "It was a qualifying without any particular problems, but our grid positions are quite disappointing.

"We are not fast enough for Q3, but nevertheless we expected to be further up the grid.

"On the positive side, the balance of the car was definitely better here than in Bahrain, but we have to further improve the overall performance."

Despite this qualifying disappointment, Sauber's drivers remain confident they can utilise this improved balance to fight for points in the race.

De la Rosa said: "We are still a step away from Q3, but we were closer than in Bahrain. We will keep working hard and further improve the car for the future, and tomorrow we will go and fight for points. This is what I really want.

"I was pushing hard in qualifying and basically I'm happy with my fastest lap even though in the traffic it was very difficult to get in a clear lap."

Team-mate Kobayashi added: "I expected to finish qualifying a bit higher up because the speed in the third free practice was encouraging.

"I pushed very hard and nearly lost the car, but we didn't make it into Q3. Nevertheless we definitely improved compared to Bahrain and, although the positions are the same, the gap is smaller. I'm quite confident for the race."