Button Hoping for Wet Race

Briton Jenson Button is hoping for rain in tomorrow's European Grand Prix after a disappointing final qualifying session for his team.

BAR driver Button wound up in 12th position nearly two seconds off the pace of pole setter Kimi Raikkonen, and admitted his Honda-powered car was just not quick enough.

"I'm pretty happy with my lap considering the difficult start we've had to the weekend," said Button. "I had planned to be a little more cautious through the Veedol chicane but as this was qualifying I decided to give it some instead.

"It's been a tough weekend so far and we've had to try a lot of things with the set-up to improve for today. The balance isn't too bad now, we're just not quick enough. It would be nice to have some rain tomorrow but I don't think it's going to come."

Canadian teammate Jacques Villeneuve, who was the first man out on track today after spinning off the circuit in first qualifying, completed a poor day for the Brackley-based outfit. The former World Champion made a mistake on his flying lap and finished down in 17th position.

"Today was a bad day," admitted Villeneuve. "It's never a good thing to go out first for qualifying but on top of that I had a bad lap. The car was sliding and I braked too late into turn one, locked the front wheels and lost a good half-second as a result.

"We also ran a good race strategy fuel-wise so there were a number of reasons for us being slower, but even without the mistake we would probably only have been 15th today. I'm sure it will be a very tough race tomorrow because we'll be starting well behind where we normally should be and that will hurt us for sure."