Trulli happy, Button less so

But his Reanult team-mate Jenson Button admitted to be "disappointed", despite taking eighth, just one place behind the Italian.

Trulli said: "I'm very happy with my position. The whole team did a good job today and even though it is very close, I think we are where we should be. Although we achieved the best we could today, there is still some work to do to improve the car.

"Personally, I think we will be much more competitive in the race than qualifying. I'm feeling very confident for tomorrow."

Button outpaced Trulli in the first half of the session before slipping behind. With speculation surrounding his future beyond the end of this season, the Englishman could do with outperforming Trulli over the next few races.

"I'm a bit disappointed with how it turned out, because the first run ended up being my quickest after I picked up some understeer on the second and third, even though we hadn't changed anything on the car," Button explained. "For my final lap, we made a small change to the rear anti roll-bar and it looked pretty positive in the first sector, where I was two tenths up. Unfortunately, I then got held up by some traffic and lost the advantage.

"Even so, I think we've got a decent set-up for tomorrow, and we should be in a position to run strongly."