Anderson: Michelin are Stronger

The tyres from French manufacturer Michelin hold the upper hand over their Bridgestone rivals at the Monte Carlo circuit, according to Jordan's director of race engineering Gary Anderson.

"On an entire lap, the Michelin tyres are stronger than the Bridgestones, but we are happy to be the first Bridgestone runner after the two Ferraris," said Anderson after qualifying, where eight of the top ten runners were using Michelin tyres.

The Bridgestone-shod Jordans of Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato failed to qualify in the top ten, with the Italian just missing out with the 11th fastest time. Fisichella, who scored Jordan's first points of the year in Austria two weeks ago, was satisfied with the result.

"Earlier this weekend I expected to be in the top ten and I have qualified 11th, which is not a bad position," he said. "My engineer and I did a good job together and the car was well balanced, but because I was driving on the limit, unfortunately it was very easy to make mistakes on the track.

"Behind the Ferraris, I was the quickest with Bridgestone tyres, which demonstrates that our set-up worked well."

Japanese rookie Sato, who damaged his Honda-powered EJ12 in this morning's practice session, posted the 16th quickest time.

"Generally it wasn't a bad session, but we had difficulties in applying all the set-up changes I would have liked, in order to manage the changing track conditions and understeer which I experienced," he said. "There was also a lot of traffic on my last runs so all in all I wasn't able to get a top time from the car."