Sauber Duo Frustrated by Rain

Both drivers struggled in first practice and although they managed to make improvements for the start of the second session, they could not fine-tune the set-ups after the wet weather arrived.

Massa said: "This morning was okay and we were able to do some of our tyre comparison, but I had a lot of oversteer. We changed quite a few things in the set-up for this afternoon and in the limited dry running I did I could tell that the handling was better. After that the rain made things pretty academic."

Villeneuve believed that a poor set-up had contributed to a spin he suffered at 130R - caused when he lost control after hitting some bumps in the corner.

"The car was difficult to drive this morning, and I had a spin in the 130R corner," he said. "It's an easy corner and you don't even have to use the whole width of the road, but it all depends on the bumps.

"Sometimes they put the front wheels in the air, sometimes the rears. It depends what line you take and I was experimenting to try and avoid the bumps. It was a bit strange, what happened. I think in future I'll just go over the bumps and forget about trying to miss them.

"This afternoon we kept the same tyres because of the restrictions and they were vibrating a bit by then, but we had made the car better before the rain came."