The 29-year-old will start on the last row of the grid after clicking 1:36.192 seconds, while his Portuguese teammate Tiago Monteiro fared better, qualifying in the 17th position, more than a second quicker. He clocked 1:35.047 seconds.

"I was the third driver to go in qualifying this afternoon so the circuit was still very dusty. Moreover, the track temperature was very high, I think it was close to 50ºC, therefore my car was quite difficult to drive," said Karthikeyan.

The Coimbatore-based driver, however, admitted that it was not just the external conditions that were to blame and that he was focusing on putting the poor performance behind him and looking ahead to Sunday's race.

"I also made a small mistake, which cost me some time. Now we will focus on improving the car for my first race in Nürburgring (circuit) tomorrow," he said.

Local Nick Heidfeld, driving a Williams-BMW, stole pole position ahead of McLaren driver Kimi Räikkönen and teammate Mark Webber.

"Narain's lap was a bit scrappy. He had to go out very early, which may have hampered him a little bit. However, I am sure he will progress through the race," said Jordan's sporting director Trevor Carlin.