Karthikeyan delighted to qualify

Indian Narain Karthikeyan was delighted after clocking a fast enough time to qualify for Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix.

After a five-year absence from the sport, the 34-year-old Hispania driver will start in 24th position, a marked improvement for his team, who were too slow to qualify in Melbourne two weeks ago.

Karthikeyan, who raced for Jordan in 2005, said he was delighted be in the race.

"We made it through qualifying which was our aim for today," he said.

"The car is virtually brand new so it's good to get some more mileage done, the more time we can get out on the track the better.

"I flat spotted my second set of tyres on turn one so it was hard to set a good time with them after that but everybody worked extremely hard and we're delighted to be in the race."

Karthikeyan admitted a sense of relief as the Sepang circuit had been earmarked as one of the toughest circuits for his team to qualify.

"We marked Sepang on the calendar beforehand as one of the toughest circuits to get under the 107 percent time so it's a great satisfaction to have done it," he said.

"Now I hope to finish tomorrow's race and get a lot more laps under my belt with the new car. They're forecasting rain for tomorrow so you never know what will happen out there."