Villeneuve: Seventh isn't start of something big

The 1997 world champion equalled his best qualifying position of the year at the Circuit de Catalunya, but only by the skin of his teeth. And he said his performance was no clear sign that BAR were on their way up.

His BAR-Honda was plagued with technical gremlins, including a severe brake problem.

"I am pleased with the fact that we managed to get seventh in the end, because we had a really hard qualifying session," said the Canadian, who also qualified seventh for the second round in Malaysia. "But I know it is going to be a hard race because the car is still very hard to drive.

"After a couple of laps it gets very loose and that makes it incredibly difficult to handle."

He continued: "We had lots of problems today. The rear brakes were not attached on the first run. I thought that was the case because on the out lap it did not feel right. First of all I thought maybe we had some new brakes and it just needed some heat and speed. It wasn't the case.

"Then somehow on the second run we found that we were 10 kilos overweight. We rectified that for the end of the run so it was better, but it meant that we ran out of time to do the perfect, aggressive lap.

"Today is pleasing because on the quick lap, I had not done an aggressive lap on the limit. There was easily still two tenths left in the car, but with the way qualifying had been going up until then we were not in a position to take risks."

But Villeneuve was quick to dismiss suggestions that BAR are on their way up, claiming instead that the team has still got many problems to iron out.

"I wouldn't say we are going in the right direction yet," he said, "because we had a troubled qualifying session today. There are still so many things that can be made better."

Villeneuve's team mate Olivier Panis, who has been a match for the Canadian so far this season, was 11th fastest.