Trulli rues lack of running

The Italian endured a poor start to his weekend when he was hit by a gearbox problem that forced him to stop running before the second session was over.

Trulli, still looking to score his first points of the season, covered 17 laps and finished as 19th quickest.

"We didn't learn as much as we would have liked today because I had a gearbox problem at the end of the second session and could not complete my last run," said Trulli.

"There was very little grip out there but it did improve in the afternoon. This is a hard circuit for the mechanical side of the car and reliability always plays a very important role.

"We don't yet know how competitive we will be but we made good preparations during our test at Monza last week so we're looking forward to a change of fortunes this weekend."

Teammate Ralf Schumacher wound up down in 16th place as the Japanese squad failed to shine on the first day of work. Schumacher was nonetheless confident of a strong weekend.

"This is not a permanent race track so it takes a lot of running before the circuit rubbers in and grip was very hard to find today," said Schumacher. "A lot of people struggled to stay on the track, particularly in the morning session when the track was at its greenest.

"The afternoon was better and we had a good day overall, making it through everything that I had planned. Brakes are critical here but we found no major problems today so I'm looking forward to a good weekend."