Frentzen leads at Jordan

The former world champion wound-up a disappointing 14th with his second worst Saturday performance of the season.

Frentzen shrugged off an oil leak in his car to get within nine-tenths-of-a-second of pole winner Michael Schumacher but believes Ferrari and McLaren still have the edge over his British-based team.

'We are getting closer to the front of the grid, but for the moment, I think this is as far up as we can get,' said the German whose 13 points leaves him fourth in the championship. 'We are continually making progress, but so are the other teams. I think we can be happy, though, as it is a pretty good position to start the race from. Our car is strong and well set-up so I am pretty confident.'

Hill had to use the T-car, which was set-up for Frentzen, after an engine problem developed in his own car during his first run; but he was still not happy with his qualifying performance.

Fourteenth is not very good and I am disappointed,' said Hill. 'I would like to think I could do better than that and, although we did have problems, I cannot put all the blame down to that. I actually quite liked the set-up on Harald's car but it was difficult to adapt to it.

'When I pressed the brakes nothing happened which was quite an alarming moment. The race will be very unpleasant in this heat, but traditionally this is a race of attrition and tomorrow should not be any different. It is very difficult to stay on the track so it could be a race full of incidents.'