Wilson endures nightmare in qualifying

This after the Minardi driver had been forced to switch to the spare car after crashing his race chassis at Turn One in the dying minutes of free practice. The Englishman now has the dilemma of trying to find a balance that suits his Ford-powered PS03 without the help of any running between now and tomorrow's race.

"It's very disappointing," said Wilson. "I seemed to pick up a chassis imbalance, which caused a problem in qualifying. It's pretty awful to be honest. We had lots of oversteer in free practice so we made a small change and now we just have understeer everywhere.

"The weekend started really well, but we seem to have had difficulties in the afternoons, so perhaps they are track or temperature-related. We'll now just have to concentrate on the race and work out a good strategy for tomorrow."

Wilson's team-mate Jos Verstappen's qualifying session was even worse. The Dutchman's gearbox let go as he braked for the first corner on his flying lap.

"The problem in qualifying first showed itself on my flying lap," said Verstappen, "as I was braking into Turn One and downshifting and suddenly had a big oversteering slide. I then started to shift up through the gears as I exited the corner, but when I got to fifth gear, there was just no drive.

"That was a real shame, because we made some good progress on aerodynamic work this morning and had a good balance in the chassis by the end of practice. As a result I think we could have been in 16th or 17th on the grid for tomorrow's race."