Baumgartner Aims for Home Race Finish

Local hero Zsolt Baumgartner is hoping for a race finish at tomorrow's Hungarian Grand Prix, the 12th round of the 2004 season.

"I'm very happy with the performance today in front of my home crowd and I hope tomorrow we will have a reliable car so that I can finish the race," said the Minardi driver after qualifying in 18th position.

"That is the main goal for me this weekend, as I wasn't able to finish here last year.

"Once again, the team did a great job today because we worked a lot on the car balance and made good progress. I was really happy about that, and I hope we can now have a successful race."

Baumgartner, who made his Grand Prix debut with the Jordan team in last season's race, finished ahead of his Italian teammate Gianmaria Bruni, who admitted he was expecting a slower time in qualifying.

"I'm happy," said Bruni. "Everything went well considering the sort of race strategy we have settled on for tomorrow. I was expecting a slower lap time in qualifying than I actually achieved, so now I'm hoping for a good race."