Even the prospect of torrential rain on Sunday is not buoying the hopes of Timo Glock.
The German driver, who has previously admitted frustration with the stalling development of the Virgin team, qualified 2 seconds off the pace of the Lotus cars in Malaysia.
Moreover, the MVR-02 is only marginally quicker than the HRT cars at Sepang.
"The gap to Lotus is the same as it was in testing," Glock complained to Auto Motor und Sport.
"Even the rain is not going to help because we simply have too little downforce - lightening would have to strike the KERS cars," he joked.