Villeneuve Happy with Season Best Result

Canadian Jacques Villeneuve gave a boost of confidence to his British American Racing team after claiming the best qualifying result for the Brackley-based outfit in the 2001 season.

The 1997 World Champion was one of the few drivers to get his tyre choice right at the end of the session, opting to use dry weather rubber to complete his final run, which allowed the BAR driver to set the sixth quickest time, his best performance of the year.

Villeneuve was happy with the result, but he admitted he was disappointed he did not have enough time to complete another lap that could have helped him move further up the grid.

"Today went quite well for us," Villeneuve admitted. "The car was quick with both intermediates and dry tyres. My qualifying lap wasn't very quick - I took it easy because I didn't want to make a mistake. But then I missed the last lap by 10 seconds. The track really dried for that lap - there were another 3 seconds left because of the way the track dried.

"I'm disappointed that we couldn't do another lap at the end but it's still good to be starting in 6th position to try for a good result in the race. Tomorrow should be good. This year we've been quite good at calling what the weather does and hopefully that will help us."