Mat Coch writes:

A poor final sector on his final flying lap during the first phase of qualify saw Renault driver Vitaly Petrov become an early victim of the knock-out session. It left the Russian in eighteenth place on the grid, and while his team had been less than enthusiastic about its hopes this weekend it still came as a slap in the face.

"It was not 100% a mistake," argued the Russian. "It looks like a mistake because I didn't do something magic, I didn't try to brake late or keep more speed in to the corner. I lost the rear because on turn fourteen there's a lot of bumps there. Even on the data I didn't try to attack too much; I was braking even a little bit earlier than normal and tried to keep the speed a little bit less.

"Suddenly I lost the rear, and of course when your rear slides your tyre temperatures come up and then of course I lost one second compared with Bruno. Until turn thirteen I was two tenths down compared to him."

With more fresh rubber than those he expects to be racing, Petrov believes a good strategy could still see him reap a points paying result today. "We will try to do something different compared to all the people around us," he said. "We have new tyres, so we need to always pit earlier and catch up on other people, then pit early again and try and jump them on the pit stop.

"With the tyres that we've got left we can do something to be closer to the top. Tenth position would be pretty good."