Button Laments 'Very Bad Qualifying'

Briton Jenson Button was unhappy with his performance in first qualifying for Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring track.

"That was a very bad qualifying for me," said the BAR driver, who posted the 13th fastest time of the session. "We changed some settings following practice this morning and it worked against us. We switched to a lot less traction control for the session and the result was no rear grip and a lot of oversteer, as you could see in the slide through the first corner.

"I've lost a lot of time and we've made things harder for ourselves tomorrow, but at least we know which direction we have to go in from here. The track, as always, is very dusty and it doesn't tend to improve a great deal as the weekend progresses, so it's going to be tough but we can definitely improve from here."

It was not a good day for Button's teammate Jacques Villeneuve either, the Canadian also struggling for grip around the Hungarian circuit. The 1997 World Champion finished right behind Button in 14th place.

"That was not a very good lap," admitted Villeneuve. "I didn't manage to keep the front tyres working for the last three corners of the lap but then I couldn't get the rear tyres to work for the first part of the lap, so I think we are going to find it difficult to make the car work for a full lap in qualifying.

"It was important not to make mistakes today because the first few cars tomorrow will have a slow and slippery track. It's a very dirty circuit and the balance changed quite a lot from this morning but that's life. In terms of the changes they've made to the circuit I like the last part of the track but in my opinion the first section was better to drive before."