Sutil proud to make it to Q3

The German driver confirmed the Silverstone-based squad's strong form as he made it to Q3, finishing with the tenth best time.

Sutil is now targeting a points finish tomorrow, and he reckons his team is in good shape for having used the harder tyre compound in Q3.

"I'm very happy," said Sutil. "I think it was a great achievement to go into Q3 at the first race: our best start to the season for a long time. The team should be very proud of it, I am very proud of this, so let's see how it goes tomorrow.

"Our goal is now to finish in the points. At the moment I'm in tenth and hopefully we can make one or two positions up as I'm the only car on the hard tyre so it may be an advantage. I'm surprised that the others were on the soft tyres so our decision could pay off tomorrow.

"We are strong under heavy fuel loads but we were very fast in Q1 and Q2 when everyone was on soft tyres so there are a few more positions we could gain. We worked very hard over the winter and over the last four years and it's nice to see it giving dividends now."

Team-mate Tonio Liuzzi qualified in 12th position, the Italian claiming his car's handling had changed since the practice sessions.

"I am a bit disappointed as we didn't know what had happened to the car since free practice," he said. "In the morning it seemed to have a pretty good balance and we didn't change very much but then we went into qualifying and we had a problem with the traction.

"That was the main reason we couldn't go through to Q3. Now we have to work on this and understand what happened but we believe in the race that we should be really strong as yesterday we were quick on the longer runs."