Verstappen Encouraged by Minardi Reliability

Dutchman Jos Verstappen was pleased with his performance in today's qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix and has set his sights on finishing Sunday's race.

The Minardi driver, who finished the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in 11th position, wound up 18th quickest in Friday's qualifying at Sepang. Verstappen, returning to Formula One after an absence of a year, was happy with the reliability of his Cosworth-powered PS03 and was hoping it stays reliable on Sunday.

"We got through a fair amount of work today," admitted Verstappen. "We changed the car a bit and were quicker in qualifying this afternoon than we were this morning. It has been a solid start to the weekend and we can certainly build on today's performance.

"The car ran reliably throughout testing and practice, which is good â€" first and foremost, we need to finish the race because if you are around at the chequered flag, you never know what can happen."

Rookie Justin Wilson finished around four tenths of a second behind his more experienced teammate, the Briton posting the 19th fastest time ahead of Jaguar's Antonio Pizzonia, who failed to set a time.

"It has not been a bad day," said Wilson. "Obviously, this is the first time I have driven on this circuit, so it was a case of getting to know the track. There are just one or two small things that you have to learn, which make a difference to the lap time.

"Other than that, I'm fairly happy. My best lap was only four tenths of a second from Jos, so it was not too bad. The car feels much better to drive than it did initially, and there are now just one or two small things that we'll sort out for tomorrow."