Happy da Matta Targeting Points Finish

Brazil's Cristiano da Matta is targeting a points finish in tomorrow's British Grand Prix after putting on his best qualifying performance of his first Formula One year.

"I think the effort was pretty good, given the circumstances," said da Matta, sixth fastest with the Toyota. "Overall, I think the whole team has shown that we have a competitive package this weekend and to get my best ever qualifying result and a top-six grid position in the spare car is very pleasing. We are really in the hunt for points tomorrow."

Da Matta was forced to use the spare car for qualifying after his racing machine suffered a problem in the warm-up.

Still, the CART champion managed to outqualify his more experienced teammate Olivier Panis, who was unable to repeat his fifth quickest time from Friday's session and had to be content with 13th position.

"I had a big oversteer under braking in the last sector, which lost me a lot of time, but that happens occasionally when you are on the limit," said Panis. "I am not sure of the actual cause, so we need to go through the data to find out why this happened.

"Of course, I am not happy, but we have to remain focussed on making up positions in the race. We need to continue to push and aim for points - the car is certainly competitive enough. I want to say thanks to the team and well done to Cristiano for such a great lap today."