Button expects strong result

Yesterday BAR suffered an engine failure in Anthony Davidson's car, Takuma Sato's brakes pitched him into the wall and Button struggled to find a balance. Things went rather better in this morning's free practice, allowing the team to get closer to the pace of the front-runners in qualifying - something it had expected to do all along.

"I'm a bit disappointed with 6th to be honest," said Jenson Button. "I had two really good first sectors, especially the second sector - the high-speed part. Then I lost quite a bit of time in the final sector because I had too much oversteer, and two tenths overall on my best time this morning.

"We've struggled to find the right set-up here and we're not there yet, so it's going to be a case of wait-and-see for the race. I'm feeling reasonably positive though and we have a good chance of a points-finish tomorrow."

Button's team-mate Takuma Sato went off track twice yesterday, and today when it counted most, he spun again at Turn 11 and failed to register a time. "I'm obviously very disappointed to finish qualifying like this," he said. "I hit a bump at high-speed and just couldn't catch it. I was pushing hard and could feel that it was a better lap.

"After such a difficult start to the weekend I felt we had made good progress this morning and it all started to come together in that qualifying lap. The car wasn't damaged thankfully but I will be starting the race from the back row of the grid which is very frustrating. I feel we have a strong race package and I will certainly be fighting hard to improve my situation tomorrow and get as close to a point as possible."

Despite the BAR-Honda's turbulent weekend team principal David Richards is still expecting a good result tomorrow: "Our recent testing has focused on longer runs and reliability, and I am confident that this will translate into a strong race performance tomorrow. Taku is going to face an uphill challenge from the back of the grid, but in a race where one can expect a high attrition rate, he could still finish in the points."