BAR duo upbeat after impressive times

Jacques Villeneuve and Jenson Button were fourth and fifth quickest respectively, as they pushed the likes of Williams-BMW and McLaren-Mercedes down the F1 pecking order.

"It was a good lap and I'm happy that the car is working well," said Villeneuve. "I knew we'd be competitive here but that's a little faster than I expected. We had a few problems this morning in free practice but we changed certain things with our set-up for qualifying and that did the trick. The car has been quick all season and we're making small improvements all the time, but it's quite cool here at the moment and the car seems to work better when it's not too hot."

Button bounced back after a tricky opening session of free practice in the morning, when he struggled to find the sweet-spot of his car.

"We expected to be quite high up in first qualifying here," said Button. "So far, so good. From the off though, the car had far too much oversteer. We thought we had made a set-up improvement after free practice but I think we over-compensated and the car was too nervous at the rear. It's not a big problem, we just need to do some more work on the set-up. Over one lap the car is good but we'll have to work on the longer runs now. I'm reasonably confident at this stage and looking forward to a good weekend."