Sauber Confident of Stronger Race Pace

The Sauber team struggled to extract the best from their Bridgestone tyres in today's qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix.

Brazilian Felipe Massa and teammate Nick Heidfeld finished in 13th and 15th positions respectively, both more than two seconds off the pace set by Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya with his Williams.

Team boss Peter Sauber claimed his drivers had a hard time during the hour-long session, but was confident of a better performance in tomorrow's race.

"Generally the cars were better today but our biggest problem was getting the best out of the tyres," said Sauber. "We tried doing three-lap runs with Nick and four-lap runs with Felipe but it was difficult to draw a conclusion. However, we know that these tyres will be very good in the race."

Rookie Massa, who will be replaced by German Heinz-Harald Frentzen at the Swiss outfit next year, outqualified his more experienced teammate for the third consecutive time, but was disappointed after missing out on a top ten spot by less than three tenths of a second.

"On scrubbed tyres I had good front-end grip on my first run but the car wasn't so good on the exit to corners," explained the Brazilian. "On new rubber on my second run I had amazing understeer, but with more downforce the car was the best it's been all weekend and I made a big improvement on my last run.

"I'm just a bit frustrated that the gaps to the cars immediately ahead of me are so small!"