Button Delighted with Season Best Result

Briton Jenson Button was delighted after achieving his best qualifying result of a difficult season with the Benetton team.

The 21-year old, under fire after being regularly outpaced by Italian teammate Giancarlo Fisichella, enjoyed a positive day at the Monza circuit, setting the eleventh quickest time of the session.

Button, who is expected to stay at Benetton in 2002, said he could have gone faster, but was pleased with his performance.

"It's excellent being 11th," said Jenson. "It is a good result, my best this year. I think it could have gone even a little better. Everyone did a great job and the car worked really well. We've got a good set-up and I did not really change anything in qualifying because we didn't need to.

"For the last run, there was a small change and we didn't get it quite right on the last run but I just had to push more and more."

Italian Fisichella did not share his teammate's joy, having to settle with 14th position after his racing car was hit by mechanical problems during the hour-long session. The future Jordan driver was disappointed to start so low at his home race.

"I had a hydraulics failure in my race car so I had to stop," Fisichella said. "We changed to the T-car, but unfortunately, I had a problem with the engine so we could not complete all of our scheduled laps. It is a very unlucky day for me and I am disappointed because the car had a very good balance."