Bridgestone Upbeat after Strong Qualifying

Bridgestone technical manager Hisao Suganuma was pleased with the Japanese manufacturer's performance in today's qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

"I'm delighted to see four Bridgestone runners in the top six for tomorrow's race," said Suganuma. "Of course, the fuel load will come into play and it will be difficult to judge the real performance of the cars.

"I'm really quite pleased though to see so many Bridgestone cars at the top end of the grid. The teams will start tomorrow's race with the tyres used to qualify today but we're confident our tyres will continue to perform well."

Bridgestone runners Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello will line up first and second on the grid after dominating this today's qualifying session with their Ferraris.

Bridgestone's positive day was completed by German Heinz-Harald Frentzen in the Sauber and Canadian Jacques Villeneuve in the BAR, who will start the race from fourth and sixth positions respectively.

Bridgestone are aiming to score their 11th consecutive victory, having won the last ten races of the 2002 season.