Sergio Perez says he feels he should have done better than fifth on the grid at Spa

The Mexican was able to secure a place on the third row of the grid after setting the fifth best time in the session, although he will now start from fourth after a post-session penalty was handed to Pastor Maldonado.

With team-mate Kamui Kobayashi second on the grid, Sauber was able to celebrate its best qualifying result to date in the session, with Perez now aiming to build on the podium finishes he has already taken this season in Malaysia and Canada.

Second and fifth are really good qualifying positions for our team and I am pleased for the crew, he said, speaking before Maldonado's penalty was applied. Personally I'm not too happy because my last lap in Q3 wasn't perfect. I had the feeling the car was performing differently to this morning.

In any case, the most important part comes tomorrow. It will be a very challenging race on a demanding circuit. I need a good start and I want to fight the people in front of me because I know the car will allow me to do that. I am definitely targeting another podium.

Head of track engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara was understandably delighted with the result.

Perhaps we should have a wet Friday at every race! he said. Free practice three this morning was quite tough after we had all lost so much time yesterday. We had to put together a lot of work in an hour, which went very well. We found some performance and then in qualifying everything went according to plan. Now let's keep concentrated for the race.

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Perez 'not too happy' despite personal best