STR pleased

Both Scuderia Toro Rosso cars made it to the second heat of the new qualifying format this afternoon. Vitatonio Liuzzi will take the 15th place on tomorrow's grid and his team mate Scott Speed, who makes his GP debut this weekend, 16th.

Tonio Liuzzi "It's been a complicated and difficult qualifying as the track conditions were totally different to yesterday. This meant we made many changes to the set-up as the car handled very differently. Qualifying was a bit chaotic with the red flag, but although I'm a bit disappointed not to make it through to the final part of the session, we have planned a fairly conservative strategy for the race, which is the only thing that matters. I definitely like this qualifying format. It's already been exciting today."

Scott Speed "I'm used to qualifying with all the other cars out on track at the same time, but all the same it did feel a bit different, this being Formula One, with a bit more pressure. The first part of the session went very well, although I got a bit held up at the end of it by Jacques. Then, in the second part, the tyre temperatures were not quite where we wanted them and I got pulled in to the weighbridge, which meant I didn't get a second run in. So, maybe we could have gone a bit quicker in the second part, but now we can play with the fuel load, which puts us in a strong position for the race."

Gabriele Tredozi, Technical Director "It's been an exciting weekend so far, with a new team and today, the new qualifying rules. The new format definitely produced some excitement and unexpected situations with the red flag. It was a good show of the sort we have not seen for many years in qualifying. We can pleased with our overall performance and the cars went well. The drivers made no mistakes to put us in a good position from which we can now look at a wide range of strategy options for the race."