Trulli left hoping for better result

"It was a hard qualifying for me and I'm a bit disappointed with the results because after this morning's practice session I believed we had the pace to be at the front," said Trulli, who will start tomorrow's race from sixth position.

"But somehow, just as in Australia, the grip slipped away between this morning and this afternoon. Something was missing after that, the car wasn't there any more and I had to push hard even to make it into Q3.

"Still, I was happy with my final lap and in the end P6 is a reasonable place to start. Tomorrow should be a good race and there could be rain so that could mix things up."

Toyota's disappointing day was completed by Timo Glock's penalty after the team was forced to change the German car's gearbox.

On top of that, Glock qualified down in 14th place, which means he will be starting from 19th tomorrow.

"This morning I had a gearbox problem after three or four laps in free practice so we lost a complete session," said Glock. "So I was short of track time heading into qualifying. The car felt different from yesterday and it was already really tricky to drive in Q1.

"I couldn't string a lap together and I knew it would be difficult to get into Q3 because the times were so tight. It felt slippery, I couldn't quite feel confident with the car and on the last lap I made a mistake so that was that.

"With our penalty it means we are starting from the back row so now we just have to hope for rain tomorrow."