BAR comes away with nothing

The Canadian ran as high as ninth, behind only the cars from Williams, McLaren, Ferrari and Renault, before departing the race with a very obvious engine failure as he exited the tunnel and parked his flaming car in the escape road by the harbourfront chicane.

"It's extremely frustrating that I wasn't able to finish the race again," commented Jacques. "We didn't get a very good launch start and I lost time running behind Nick Heidfeld. I suspected that there was something wrong with the engine at the first pit stop. There was an engine noise change and vibration, then it gave up coming through the tunnel. Once again, I'm going to have to put this weekend behind me, focus on testing and hope for better things in the next race."

Shuhei Nakamoto, Engineering Director at Honda Racing Development wasn't able to throw any light on Villeneuve's engine failure: "I'm sorry that Jacques was not able to finish, as he was having a good race. We don't know yet what caused the engine to stop, but we will investigate everything thoroughly this week."

Following his release from Monaco's Princess Grace Hospital on race morning, with no broken bones but some bruising, it was decided after further medical consultation that Button would not start the race. "I'm obviously extremely disappointed that I was only spectating today," said the Englishman. "The weekend had started out so well for me and I felt very confident that we could expect a strong finish. I really wanted to race, but at the same time I knew that withdrawing was the safest option. It's far better for me to relax and prepare for the next race in Canada."