Button: Things aren’t as bad as they could be

After all the gloomy predictions about his chances, Jenson Button's first qualifying session for Benetton in Melbourne wasn't as bad as he was expecting it might have been

The young Englishman qualified 16th for the Renault-powered team, despite being dogged by engine and gearbox problems throughout free practice which seriously restricted his track time. He was one place ahead of team mate Giancarlo Fisichella, who has consistently outpaced him this weekend, after the Italian was forced to switch to the spare car due to a water leak.

"Qualifying hasn't gone too badly considering all the problems we have had so far this weekend," said Button. "I haven't had much track time and therefore haven't got much work done on new tyres. Sixteenth position, considering all this and our expectations, is quite reasonable."

Benetton's technical director, Mike Gascoyne, was similarly pleased, relatively speaking: "We didn't expect to qualify higher than 14th this weekend, so I can't say we are overly disappointed. After Jenson's problems this morning, when we had to change the gearbox, and yesterday, he did an excellent job to work steadily with his engineer to improve the car with very little running over the weekend.

"Overall, we are more or less where we expected to be and our next milestone will be to make the car reliable for the race."