Button impresses BAR with fifth on grid

Despite lapping in 1m19.563s to Jenson's best of 1m18.704s, the Canadian's confidence suggests that they may have been running rather different fuel loads so that they can run varied strategies for the race.

Honda Racing Development Racing Engineer Shuhai Nakamoto was pleased with the team's qualifying performance, saying: "Qualifying o the third and sixth row gives us a good chance to score some more points. Overall, the weekend has been encouraging for us so I'm quite positive about tomorrow."

"I'm really pleased with fifth today," grinned Jenson. "It felt like a quick lap, but I did make a couple of mistakes. I pushed a bit too hard in some of the corners and got a bit of oversteer but it's nothing that can't be sorted out for tomorrow. We've made solid progress towards the race and that's shown itself in qualifying. I think our strategy is the right way to go so I hope we can turn that into a good result for the team."

Jacques remained upbeat: "It was a good clean lap: nothing special, but I'm quite happy. Compared with yesterday, our cars are a lot closer together considering our respective strategies. I'm happy with our strategy and Jenson's lap showed that we have a good set-up going into the race. We're looking strong compared to other Bridgestone runners."