Spyker duo lament lack of pace

The German driver had shone in yesterday's practice, leading Spyker's technical chief Mike Gascoyne to believe the Dutch squad would be capable of fighting for a place just outside the top ten today.

However, both Sutil and teammate Sakon Yamamoto struggled in the wet, having to settle for 20th and 22nd positions respectively.

"Yesterday was much better than today," admitted Sutil. "We had no real running in the morning in the rainy conditions, so it was hard to set-up the car.

"We hoped that we would go better but we had so much understeer in the high speed corners, there was no way we could carry the speed through.

"When the car is wrong it is difficult to do anything in qualifying; you just have to live with it, but we will check what the problems were and work overnight to be ready for the race tomorrow."

Yamamoto added: "Today was a strange day as the morning session was cancelled after we had done just one installation lap and we had to go without any data into qualifying.

"We tried the extreme weather tyres and I felt the track conditions might allow more grip with wets so we changed, but I struggled to get a good balance on the car and couldn't improve my times.

"It is a shame, but as always I am going to try to do my best in the race."