Trulli surprised by qualifying showing

"It is great to be here in eighth on the grid and to be honest I did not expect this," said the Toyota driver, who has made the top ten in all qualifying sessions this season except at Monaco.

"So I am very satisfied with our day and I have to say thanks to everyone in the team who have worked hard all weekend. We managed a smooth qualifying session without any problems even though the times were very tight and that made it hard.

"There wasn't much grip at the start of Q1 but the track improved. The car seemed well balanced and it was quite quick so I was reasonably happy with that. But we will have to wait and see how it feels over long runs in the race tomorrow.

"I am happy with the result today. It gives me a good chance to score more points so I am quite optimistic for the race."

Trulli kept his perfect record after outqualifying teammate Ralf Schumacher for the seventh time in as many races, the German having to settle for 12th place.

The result, however, was an improvement over recent races, with Schumacher having missed the first qualifying cut in the past three Grands Prix.

"The qualifying went pretty well actually," Schumacher said. "We were just a bit unlucky that we missed out on the top 10 by less than a 10th of a second. I had a little traffic on my first run in Q1 but we got a clean lap at the end of the session.

"Between the two sessions, we made a small change to the front wing and the car was a little bit nervous on my last flying lap in Q2. You can see we are getting closer to where we want to be because today it was possible to get into the top 10. That's how it goes sometimes."