Hydraulics Problem Hampers Bruni

A loss of hydraulic pressure in his Minardi frustrated Italian Gianmaria Bruni's attempt to escape the final row of the grid in today's qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

Bruni, who had set the 19th quickest time in the first qualifying session, was unable to leave the pits for his second run, his car's gearbox failing to work. The Italian rookie was one of three drivers who failed to set a time and will take the start from the back of the grid.

"It's obviously a bit disappointing for my first F1 qualifying to end this way," said Bruni. "The first run was good, and I didn't push that hard, as I wanted to get the feel of the track for the second run. The second run would have been better, for sure, as everybody went faster, but when I tried to select first gear to leave the garage, there was nothing.

"It's a shame, because we had developed a pretty good chassis balance for the car today. Anyway, that's what happened, and now we'll just have to see what we can do tomorrow."

Hungarian Zsolt Baumgartner will start from 17th position, as the last driver with a time.

"I think the result wasn't bad â€" we picked up two seconds from the first run and ended up only half-a-second behind the Jordan, which is good," said the Hungarian. "Overall, I'm happy, and even more importantly, my engineer is happy.

"I'm sorry for Gimmi that he didn't get a time this afternoon, but I hope we can both have a good race tomorrow, and if we're lucky, score some points."