Heidfeld says he could have been third

The BMW Sauber driver, whose team have looked strong all weekend at the American track, will start from fifth place after the German got it wrong at the final corner during his last qualifying attempt.

The time lost meant Heidfeld finished behind the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen.

"The balance of the car was better today, but I am not really happy with my qualifying as on the last lap I didn't get it right in the last corner," he said.

"I had some graining with the tyres and obviously was too aggressive and slid a bit away from racing line, otherwise I think I could have qualified in front of the Ferraris. In Montreal our car was very good over the race distance, so I hope we can continue like this."

BMW enjoyed a strong session after Sebastian Vettel put on another impressive display in his maiden qualifying session.

The German teenager, replacing Robert Kubica at Indianapolis, will start from a superb seventh place.

"It was thrilling as you have three different sessions and three times the opportunity to either do a good lap or a bad lap," said Vettel. "Towards the end I could have been a bit better, but making it into qualifying three was already a big step.

"I shall sleep better tonight because last night I had the unknown ahead about what will happen. However, yesterday I think we had a very good day and today also was not too bad. Here I shall be racing against the best drivers in the world, which is a big challenge, and the race is a bit longer than I am used to.

"Now I am much more familiar with the car and really looking forward to the race and another good thing is that P7 is on the clean side."