Wilson too aggressive in qualifying

The Briton said that his Minardi had suffered from understeer through the section for most of the day, so he attempted to use more kerb to compensate for the car's deficiencies.

"I had a bit of a moment going through the swimming pool section on my qualifying run and hit the steering lock stops in both directions trying to correct the resulting slide," said Wilson. "The car had understeered through there for most of the morning practice, so I was more aggressive with it in qualifying and used more kerb, but the car just didn't like it."

Team-mate Jos Verstappen will line up 18th, but said that the team's decision to run a heavy fuel load hampered his performance. "That was a good lap with a heavy fuel load, so I think our position for the race tomorrow is not looking too bad," he said. "The strategy we are using compromised our performance a little today, but there should be a benefit in the race tomorrow. I think the engineers definitely made the right call on this."