Barrichello pleased despite no top ten

Barrichello will start the race from 11th position after what he said was a perfect flying lap towards the end of the second qualifying segment.

But despite the improvements introduced for this weekend's race, Barrichello reckons Honda simply did not have the pace to be higher.

"My final Q2 lap felt perfect and I'm pleased for myself and the team that we could put in a good time," said Barrichello. "Unfortunately we were just not quick enough to be in the top ten, but we are knocking on the door.

"I'm very pleased with my lap, and whilst it is frustrating to be so close, I am happy with our performance today and we are looking good for tomorrow.

"The new aero package is certainly an improvement, that was evident from the test last week and from the feel of the car this weekend. We are still making tweaks to find the optimum performance but we achieved a good set-up for qualifying today and I'm confident that the same will be true for the race tomorrow.

"We are not quite in the position to be in the top ten and scoring points yet, so we need to take advantage of every opportunity that arises in the midfield pack during the race to achieve a point finish. This gives us plenty to aim for tomorrow though."

Jenson Button finished down in 13th, the Briton claiming he is still trying to get to grips with the new aero package.

"Qualifying was just so close today and it was a tough session for us," he said. "A lot of our work this weekend has been trying to understand the aero on the car as I missed out on testing last week. On my last run, I took some front wing off as the rear end was twitchy and I had too much understeer.

"This was really useful as we found it made the rear end more stable and didn't give me any more understeer, so it's a question of trying to understand the car and catching up on the time that I missed last week.

"In the circumstances, I'm pleased with our position today. I felt a lot more comfortable with the balance of the car on my final run and we are certainly making progress.

"I need a bit more time with the car to understand the new aero properly and find out how to get the most out of it, but I'm happy with our position going into the race and we'll see what happens and what we can take advantage of."