to secure fourth-row spot

Circumstances deny Brazilian his usual shot at pole

Bruno Senna will line up eighth for tomorrow's Valencia GP2 Series race -the first top-class international single-seater event on the Spanish city'snew 5.4-kilometre coastal track. The Brazilian is firmly in touch with theleading group at this fast, challenging venue, but circumstances conspiredto deny him the opportunity to make his customary bid for pole position.

Bruno Senna

"It has just been one of those days, really. This morning I missed a fewlaps in the free practice session because of a throttle problem. It took awhile to get the car fired up and I set off several laps after everybodyelse. When I did get going, the session was interrupted by red and yellowflags, so it was quite hard to settle into a rhythm. I also ran out of timeto evaluate all the things we would ordinarily have tried.

"I tested an F3 car here in July, which helped me to learn the circuit, butit still takes time to adapt to driving a more powerful car and I felt Iwas slightly on the back foot when qualifying started. In the end the mainproblem was traffic. That was the same for everybody, of course, but thesession ended up being less about how quickly you could drive and moreabout traffic management. I never managed a clear lap, so that was that."Despite everything, the car felt OK and I'm confident I can obtain adecent result. It has been a frustrating day, but this is not meant to bean easy sport and I shall rise to the challenge tomorrow."