Williams optimistic of strong race

Mark Webber just missed out on the cut by five hundredths of a second at the end of Q2 - a time difference that can almost certainly be explained by the team favouring a perfect race set-up.

Technical director Sam Michael said: "The car is getting better and we just missed out on Q3 by half a tenth of a second.

"We took a few set-up decisions to suit race conditions, perhaps at the expense of qualifying pace, so we are expecting to have a strong race pace tomorrow.

"Everything else on the car has been steady and strong across all the sessions so far this weekend, so we are confident Mark and Nico will be able to race for points tomorrow."

Webber explained: "We weren't as competitive in qualifying as we will probably be in the race, although it seemed to be going well for us this afternoon until we looked at the lap times of the other cars.

"I think our pace this afternoon was compromised by understeer and grip levels and if we had solved this, we would have definitely made it into Q3. I enjoyed myself out there and was happy with how the sessions went, but now I am looking forward to the race."

Teammate Nico Rosberg admitted that he was baffled about why he could not extract more performance from his car.

"This morning I really felt very comfortable in the car, so it's hard to identify what was missing in qualifying," he said. "I was expecting to be a lot quicker, especially as the session went on.

"I didn't seem able to improve on my second set of tyres and I couldn't find the confidence I wanted under braking, which is important here.

"I am sure our tyres are strong and the difficult thing here is always finding a compromise between qualifying and race set-up, so for sure tomorrow we will be looking a lot stronger and will have a good race pace."