Yamamoto bemoans troubled qualifying

The Spyker driver, who made his debut with the team in the previous race in Hungary, finished at the bottom of the times, 1.6 seconds off Sutil.

Yamamoto spun during the session and then was hit by a gearbox problem that meant he could only complete one trouble-free run during the day.

"I am disappointed for us as we had had a fairly good weekend so far and I think we had a reasonable set-up for qualifying,"
Yamamoto said.

"I was really looking forward to driving in it, but unfortunately in the session we had some problems; I spun and then were some problems with the gearbox and I couldn't recover as usual as gear selection was a bit strange. It's a disappointing result but I will try to do my best in the race. Our race speed is always much better."

Sutil, whose team were forced to delay plans to race with the B-spec chassis this weekend, was pleased with his performance despite failing to escape the final row.

"We can be quite happy here, the gap is not that big and we did the best we could with the old car," he said. "We found a good set up and the lap came together in qualifying.

"During the session though it was very difficult to find a space in the traffic and I only just crossed the line 10 seconds from the flag, but I think we can be happy with the time and hope for more in the race."