Button Encouraged by BAR's Pace

Jenson Button is confident of a very competitive weekend for his BAR team following a strong start to the Monaco Grand Prix today.

BAR were closest to the leading Ferrari of Michael Schumacher in today's practice, with Japan's Takuma Sato second quickest in the morning and British teammate Jenson Button third on his return to the track where last season he had the biggest accident of his career.

The Briton was sixth fastest in the second session, while Sato finished down in seventh.

"I think we should feel very happy with what we have achieved today and we're certainly looking good for a strong weekend," said Button. "We have run three cars with mo major problems and achieved everything we needed to, particularly with Anthony who has done a great job today.

"We still have a lot of work to do to go through all the data we have acquired from all three cars. As we all know, qualifying well is crucial here and we have to ensure that tomorrow morning's sessions give us the maximum preparation for that."

Briton Anthony Davidson, the BAR test driver who will not race on Sunday, claimed the day's second fastest time of 1:15.141 ahead of Schumacher's Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello.

"I've had a really positive debut here today and I'm very pleased with our performance," said Davidson. "It's a fairly tough circuit generally - and quite daunting for the first few laps - but I was really looking forward to getting out there."