Toro Rosso technical chief Giorgio Ascanelli was pleased to see both his cars reach Q2 in Singapore, but reckons they were assisted by other teams' problems and are slower than the result suggested.
Sebastien Buemi took 14th on the grid, two places ahead of teammate Jaime Alguersuari. Both had lost track time after incidents on Friday.
"So far, we have had a couple of eventful days and although we got both cars into Q2, we are not in that good shape," said Ascanelli. "Our grid positions owe something to [Kamui] Kobayashi's unfortunate accident and the problems of others. We have lost pace compared to Monza.
"Due to the lack of track time yesterday because of Seb's accident, for which I do not blame him and Jaime's technical problem, there are a couple of setup solutions we were unable to exploit. Because of this, we had to concentrate more on race preparation this morning and less on qualifying.
"In addition, we ran a technical solution yesterday that Jaime found to his liking, but I took the decision we could not run it for the rest of the weekend, as we had a problem with it. Therefore today, he did not have the same level of confidence in the car.
"As for Sebastien, he has had a less complicated time, giving him greater confidence in the car and he drove well, putting together a good lap, so we can be happy with him for that."
Despite his disappointment with Toro Rosso's pace today, Ascanelli thinks it will be in better shape in race trim.
"What a driver needs here more than anything is confidence, therefore, as we make up for the time lost, I do believe we can be in better shape for the race tomorrow, especially because of the fact we focused more on race setup today," he said.