Sauber Confident of Stronger Qualifying

Team boss Peter Sauber is confident his Swiss squad will enjoy a stronger qualifying session on Saturday after a somewhat disappointing start of their Austrian Grand Prix weekend in practice.

The Hinwill-based team, set to debut a revised Petronas engine at the A1-Ring, have scored points at the Austrian race in the past three years, but on Friday Felipe Massa and Nick Heidfeld failed to shine despite a promising morning session.

After finishing in third and fourth places in the first practice hour, Massa and Heidfeld were only 15th and 16th quickest at the end of the day. But despite their performance, Sauber is expecting to be closer to the top on Saturday.

"Unfortunately Nick had a problem with his car's alternator this afternoon and did not manage to improve, having been fourth fastest this morning," said Sauber. "Felipe concentrated on essential race preparation work, which did not allow us to seek quick times.

"I'm confident we will be strong tomorrow, when both of them will use the latest version of our Petronas V10 engine."