Coulthard: Fourth is best we could get

The Scot qualified fourth, one place ahead of his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen at the Interlagos circuit today (Saturday).

"At the moment today's positions are as good as we could have hoped for," said Coulthard, who won last year's event. "I believe we will be faster in the race, as I was reasonably happy with the balance when we were running with heavy fuel loads during practice. As last year's Brazilian GP showed, anything can happen."

Raikkonen did well to qualify as high as fifth. "I had to change from my race car to the T-car for one of my timed laps and back again, which didn't make things easy," explained the Finn. "It's a pity because I think I could have achieved a better time. Under the circumstances I'm satisfied with the result and will aim for a competitive race tomorrow."

McLaren boss Ron Dennis was encouarged by the performance, despite the team's problems. "Between yesterday's practice and today's timed session the team has had an extraordinary workload coming from a variety of problems, which certainly created additional pressure going into qualifying," he said. "Therefore the grid positions and, more importantly the small time difference to the front, is encouraging. All in all a good effort by the entire team which hopefully will be reflected in tomorrow's race."