Toyota frustrated by poor qualifying

Da Matta's run was hampered with handling difficulties on his TF103 car, but Panis admitted that he made a mistake in the second sector, costing him time.

"I tried to push hard but I made a big mistake in the second sector and we are down in fifteenth as a result," said the Frenchman. "I really want to say sorry to the team because we did a great job in free practice this morning and the car is really good in terms of performance, so obviously I am extremely disappointed for the team and myself but tomorrow is another day and I will try to drive to the limit tomorrow to get some points."

Brazilian da Matta blamed handling problems for his qualifying run. "Due to the bad weather conditions yesterday, we simply haven't had enough track time to find the optimum set-up on the car for this track," he said. "I am really unhappy to be starting my home GP from so far back on the grid, but we'll see what happens tomorrow."

Keizo Takahashi, Toyota's general manager of car design and development, said: "It is disappointing because we should have been much higher up the grid for this race. Nevertheless we will keep at it and hope for a top eight finish tomrrow."