Two Saubers in top 10

Felipe Massa, who was eighth, said: "To begin with my set-up wasn't very good, I had understeer this morning and not enough traction, and that's why I went off into the gravel with 15 minutes left. But we worked hard and the car was a lot better this afternoon.'

Nick Heidfeld was happy with his set-up and experienced no technical problems, but found it hard to push because of all the yellow flags being waved for the drivers who had over stepped the limit and spun.

"Every time I got a rhythm going I kept coming across yellow flags where the drivers had gone off," he complained. "The balance was okay towards the end of this afternoon's session, but it could have been better even with the track being so slippery."

Technical director, Willy Rampf, was unwilling to draw a solid conclusion from the two sessions due to the changing track conditions, but was happy with the reliability of both cars.