Villeneuve Laments Driving Mistake

Canadian Jacques Villeneuve admitted to a driving error in today's first qualifying for the German Grand Prix.

The BAR driver lost control of his car at the first corner of his flying lap and will be the second man to come out in tomorrow's grid deciding session, only behind new Minardi driver Nicolas Kiesa, who also failed to set a time after his car stopped as he exited the garage.

"A good day would be nice," said Villeneuve. "When things start going wrong it's a vicious circle. I went through the first corner a little bit too fast, but not by that much. I just went sideways and lost it. The car felt good until that point and suddenly the rear started sliding a bit but not a big snap.

"It wasn't something that took me by surprise, it happened very slowly. It's better that we had this problem today rather than tomorrow but now we have a lot of work to do to get a good result in final qualifying."

Villeneuve's teammate Jenson Button had a better day, finishing in 12th position in a session dominated by the Michelin runners. Button was the third fastest Bridgestone runner behind the two Ferraris.

"It was a reasonable lap for me," said Button. "I got a little too much oversteer in the first part of the stadium section - the left-hander hairpin - so I lost a bit of time there. I couldn't really do much more today but hopefully we can improve tomorrow.

"Compared to the Ferrari we're only three tenths away from Michael, but there's a bigger gap between ourselves and the Williams at the moment. Who knows though? A lot of people have been using a tyre that may be good for qualifying but possibly not so good for the race, so we'll have to wait and see how that pans out."