Heidfeld Hoping for Race Finish

Jordan driver Nick Heidfeld is looking to finish tomorrow's Malaysian Grand Prix following his retirement from the first race of the season in Australia.

German Heidfeld will start tomorrow's race at Sepang from 15th position after finishing nearly 3.5 seconds off the pace of pole-setter Michael Schumacher. Heidfeld was pleased with his flying lap and is hoping for reliability in the race.

"I'm quite happy with my qualifying laps although I had a little oversteer at the second last corner during the first qualifying," said Heidfeld. "Second qualifying was better and we improved the car significantly through the weekend. We now have to work hard to improve the car to move forward up the grid.

"Tomorrow we need to focus on finishing the race."

Italian teammate Giorgio Pantano had a difficult day, failing to set a time in the opening qualifying session due to a problem with his racing car. The rookie had to switch to the spare machine for the second flying lap, and could only set the 18th fastest time, over three seconds behind Heidfeld.

However, under new regulations that stipulate drivers have to use the same engine during the whole weekend, Pantano will start from last position.

"Unfortunately I had a problem with my race car which we found shortly before qualifying started and we weren't able to fix it in time," said Pantano. "I had to drop from the race car to the T car and it was not the same as my race car, also the track was different from this morning and it was a very difficult lap.

"The rear was very slippery and we need to see if there is anything we can do. In the race we will be relying on our strategy to compete and honestly I think we will come up a little bit from my starting position."