Sato delighted with Super Aguri's showing

The Super Aguri team completed another milestone today after they took part in the new-looking qualifying session at Sakhir.

Although they failed to make the first cut, the whole team were pleased with their performance after a race against time to make the first race of the season.

"Well done to everyone in the team - I am delighted with the result," said Sato after finishing in 20th position today. "Both cars qualified and we are on the grid for the race tomorrow, which was our target for this weekend of course, but is a great achievement by the team.

"We have to work hard on improving our performance going forward, but for now we have accomplished everything that we wanted to achieve so far this weekend and we hope that both cars have a good race tomorrow."

Sato's rookie teammate Yuji Ide finished right behind his teammate, but thanks to Kimi Raikkonen's problems, the Japanese rookie will not start from last place.

"Everything happened so quickly in the qualifying session; it felt like it happened in a few minutes. It was so short that I didn't have time to be nervous or excited. My first F1 qualifying time is not fast and even though I am not in the last position, I am the practically the last!

"However, I am confident that I could get a higher qualifying position as the season progresses and I am very happy to be able to race tomorrow and will do my very best to finish the race safely. I am very grateful to the mechanics for their hard work in making sure that I am on the grid tomorrow."