Happy Frentzen Confident of Strong Race

German Heinz-Harald Frentzen is looking to enjoy a strong United States Grand Prix tomorrow after posting a promising 11th quickest time in his return to racing.

35-year old Frentzen returned to Grand Prix action this weekend after missing the Hungarian and Belgian Grands Prix due to the problems of his former team Arrows. The German, standing in at Sauber for penalised Brazilian driver Felipe Massa at Indianapolis, shone in today's session despite his driving position, which he admitted yesterday was far from ideal.

"I think we did a pretty reasonable job today of getting the best out of both cars," said Frentzen at the end of qualifying. "I have to say, however, that initially in qualifying I was surprised to have oversteer after suffering from understeer this morning.

"Eventually we managed to get rid of most of it by making small changes to the car during the session, and I think we can do a good job in the race tomorrow from the starting positions we earned this afternoon."

Frentzen was outqualified by Sauber teammate Hick Heidfeld, who put on a good effort to boost the Swiss squad's chances of a point-scoring finish tomorrow. Despite some problems with his car early in the session, Heidfeld was able to set the 10th quickest time of the day.

"To begin with in qualifying the car was not as good as it had been this morning," admitted Heidfeld. "I had a lot of problems, especially in the first corner. On my first run I locked the brakes there, then on the second I spun. I was surprised that some small changes we had made had such a big adverse influence.

"We made some more changes and the third run was okay, and finally on my last one I managed a good improvement. Things weren't perfect, but we are back in the top 10 and that was our aim, so I'm pretty happy with that."