Sato Pleased with Qualifying Pace

Japanese driver Takuma Sato was pleased with his performance in final qualifying for his home Grand Prix at the Suzuka circuit.

Sato, returning to racing action after a year, posted the 13th quickest time of today's session.

The BAR driver, who scored his first Formula One points at last year's Japanese Grand Prix with the Jordan team, admitted he made some mistakes during his flying lap, but was still pleased with his showing.

"That was a little difficult for me. The important thing was to stay close to Jenson and I'm quite pleased with where I ended up," said Sato. "I did make a couple of mistakes which cost me a couple of tenths. Most importantly I didn't make a big mistake so I'm quite confident for the race.

"Contrary to what many people think, I'm not as familiar with Suzuka as most of the current drivers. Before 2002, the last time I raced here was in 1998, and prior to that I only ever raced here in school series. With the latest changes to the circuit, I'm still learning as much as the other drivers - more so, of course, because I haven't raced for a year."

Sato was outqualified by his teammate Jenson Button, who put on a promising performance for the BAR team, fighting for fifth place in the Contructors' Championship. The Briton finished as ninth quickest.

"I was a little bit on the edge there and overcooked it in a couple of places, particularly in the second Degna where I went right over the kerb, so I lost a bit of time there," said Button. "We needed to pull out a fast one though and get the best out of the car, and that's what we've got to do to get the grid position.

"My set-up wasn't ideal going into warm-up and we had to work quite hard during that session to make it better. It's still not ideal but I'm quite pleased with the lap overall and it was a lot of fun. The most important thing now is to give it everything we've got in the race in order to win back fifth in the Championship."