Trulli still unsure of TF106B potential

The heavily-modified car, making its Grand Prix debut this weekend, failed to shine in practice, but allowed Trulli to set the eighth fastest time in qualifying on the streets of the Mediterranean principality.

The Italian, however, reckons it's still too early to make a judgement about the real pace of the car.

"The team did a good job today but it was a tough qualifying session," said Trulli. "We made some adjustments to the tuning to avoid a bit of understeer and the car reacted pretty well.

"In the end I'm happy with where I am as well as our race strategy. It is obviously difficult to judge a new car on this kind of circuit but first we have a tough Sunday ahead and I just hope we can run a good race tomorrow."

Teammate Ralf Schumacher will start from 11th place on the grid, but the German believes Toyota will be strong in the race thanks to their strategy.

"Our times were not impressive this morning because we have spent the whole weekend doing race set-up work so we were confident we could pick up the pace in qualifying," said Schumacher. "The traffic was not as bad as we feared going into the sessions with the 2006 qualifying rules so the team did well to find some relatively clear laps.

"So it's a reasonable job so far and with the race strategy that we have chosen and the tyres that we have, we should be strong tomorrow.

"It is a very long race and because you have to be 100 per cent concentrated all the time it certainly feels like it. But the challenge is to push to the limit for 78 laps without going over it."