Speed says faster than expected

Speed and teammate Tonio Liuzzi finished well off the pace and close to the bottom of the times yesterday, but the American finished in 17th in today's qualifying while the Italian managed to make it to the second session to finish in 16th.

Speed admitted he did not expect to be that quick.

"It was a good qualifying for us," said Speed. "This morning, we really improved the car from the first day. My compliments to the guys who sorted it out with lots of hard work overnight. I made a small mistake that might have cost me Tonio's ass but I got ninety nine percent of the potential of the car.

"Before we came here, I thought this might be our worse race, but now I think we have a chance to put up a fight, because the car is a lot better than I thought it would be. I'll be hoping to make a good start and pass a few cars on the first lap."

Liuzzi added: "Getting through to the second part of qualifying has always been difficult for us. This time I did it, despite a few problems with my traction control and I beat Scott by just one thousandth of a second. It would have been good to get both our cars into Q2 for the last race.

"Even though they have resurfaced some of the track it is still rather bumpy and so it is hard to judge the turns and hit the right braking point. But I am looking forward to the race on this track that I consider to be one of the best on the calendar."