PORTIMAO (POR) 18 SEPTEMBER 2009:

Edoardo Mortara will start the penultimate race of the 2009 GP2 Series season from 20th position after a frustrating qualifying session in which a bizarre affliction to his car came back to haunt him.

Edo, who joined his 23 rivals in making the GP2 Series' debut at the Portimao circuit in the Algarve, Portugal, this morning, settled in well to the track, despite first practice being held in the rain. In the wet, Edo had easily sat within the top three, but fell to tenth as the track started to dry. As a dry line began to form in the one-off second practice session, Edo was 19th as a late flurry of laps by drivers on slick tyres saw him slip out of position.

For qualifying, a combination of a car whose set-up was not to Edo's liking and a repeat of the steering alignment issue which had blighted his qualifying run in Hungary, conspired to make his afternoon overtly difficult. The Italian did all he could, but in the circumstances could only muster 20th position on the grid.

EDOARDO MORTARA:

The steering wasn't straight in qualifying, which was obvious when we left the pits. It was really difficult, because you're trying to learn the track and perfect your set up and you can't even drive the car in a straight line. I tried and tried but it just wasn't working.

The set-up was pretty bad, and we've still got the same problems as in the other races. So we qualified two seconds off pole which is just worse than ever. On the plus side it's the last time I'll have to try and qualify like that this season.

The rain this morning meant we couldn't really try out what we'd wanted, but the car worked well in the wet and I felt confident. We were really quick. But then again we get to qualifying and there just wasn't any pace.

I really don't know what to hope for out of the weekend. Every time I give my best and I'll just be happy to put this qualifying nightmare behind us.

TELMEX ARDEN INTERNATIONAL CHIEF ENGINEER - MICK COOK:

It's a bumpy circuit, especially on the straight with a change in surface which seems to unsettle the car when we go over them, so we need to compromise for that and not upset the cars in the corners. Unfortunately it was wet this morning which makes life more difficult. In the wet session we weren't so bad but we were nowhere near in the dry.

I think Edo might have hit a kerb and that resulted in the steering issue, because we could see the change. We'll have to check. We've started down there before, so I'm sure Edo will be OK. Maybe we should hope for rain as in Monza.

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