Button Baffled by Lack of Pace

Briton Jenson Button said he was unable to explain the lack of speed from his BAR during today's qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

"I'm lost as to why my qualifying lap was so slow because we could and should have been quicker based on this morning's running. So I'm actually quite disappointed," said Button after posting the sixth quickest time of the day.

"The car has been great all weekend and we've been looking so strong, but this afternoon the car felt very different from this morning.

"Some of that will be down to changing track conditions and loss of grip, but we'll have to look at the information and see what went wrong. There's still some work to do if we are to achieve our full potential here tomorrow."

Button, who scored his maiden podium at the Malaysian Grand Prix a fortnight ago, had topped the times in both practice sessions ahead of qualifying, but was unable to repeat the feat and finished over seven tenths of a second behind pole setter Michael Schumacher.

The Briton was also outqualified by teammate Takuma Sato, who will start the race from fifth place.

"It was a good lap considering that I had some oversteer, so I'm quite pleased," said Sato. "It has been a very productive weekend so far and I'm happy that we haven't had any problems so far.

"I have been able to get lots of laps in and this really helped with my qualifying result, so this just shows what is possible with the right preparation. I'm really looking forward to the race."