Trulli hopeful of competitive weekend

The Italian driver finished as 12th fastest after having to cope with set-up problems he reckons the team will have to solve in order to be faster in tomorrow's qualifying.

Despite that, Trulli was feeling quite comfortable with his car and is hopeful Toyota will be strong during the rest of the weekend.

"Today we made it through a lot of work on tyres and set-up and the car felt good in general," said Trulli. "It has been hot so the track conditions were changing a lot over the course of the two sessions. We still have to solve some set-up issues in order to find more speed as the car's handling is crucial here.

"The track surface is very dark and it is quickly affected by the sun so it can suddenly become very slippery. You have to prevent that and figure out what balance you might end up with in the race. But Toyota has generally been competitive here so I hope we can do well this weekend."

Trulli's teammate Timo Glock, fresh from scoring his first points of the season in Canada, set the 15th fastest time after what he labelled as a difficult start to the day.

"That was a difficult start to the weekend," he said. "The tyres are just not working for me at the moment and that makes the car very difficult to drive.

"I can't get the peak out of the tyres for the first lap so I am not getting the lap time, then I get massive graining and a big drop-off. So we have work to do but I remain hopeful.

"After our good result in Montreal, we had a positive test last week in Barcelona and collected data in all areas aimed at improving the car both mechanically and aerodynamically. We'll have to see how much progress the other teams have made but we should aim to score points."