Button Upbeat after Strong Practice

Briton Jenson Button was pleased with the start of his Italian Grand Prix weekend after posting the fourth quickest time of the day.

"Fourth place isn't too bad at the end of Friday," said the BAR driver. "My lap on new tyres was pretty average so I feel this is a good start considering that we have tomorrow to focus on set-up.

"The times of the top six cars are very close so it's still quite early in the weekend to make any predictions. I think we have a good car here though and I'm sure we have a strong weekend ahead of us."

Button, looking for his eighth podium of the season at Monza, was the fastest of the BAR drivers on a strong day for the Honda-powered team. Button's teammate Takuma Sato posted the sixth quickest time, while Anthony Davidson wound up eighth.

"This was a good start to the weekend," said Sato. "We came from testing with a lot of positive information and put in a competitive performance today. It is warm here once again, but we have all three cars performing well so the team are very happy.

"If we continue to work well on set-up tomorrow then I feel that we should have a strong qualifying session."

Davidson, the BAR test driver who will not race on Sunday, was third quickest in the morning.