Villeneuve Hopes Tyre Gamble Pays Off

Canadian Jacques Villeneuve is hoping his tyre choice will pay off at tomorrow's German Grand Prix after setting the 13th quickest time in final qualifying.

Former champion Villeneuve, who was the second driver to go out today after spinning during his flying lap in opening qualifying yesterday, opted for the harder compound of the Bridgestone tyres, and though he was hampered by his choice today he expects the gamble to pay off in the race.

"The car is lively and the balance is not bad so I could push hard today," explained the BAR driver. "The hardest thing was to get temperature into the tyres for one lap because they take around five or six laps to really start working.

"I lost some time in the last two corners when I picked up a bit of understeer and the tyres grained a little. We had the choice of a tyre that was better on one lap for qualifying but which we couldn't race well, or a tyre that would get better with the race. We chose the latter and I think we'll see the benefit of that tomorrow."

Teammate Jenson Button endured a disappointing qualifying that saw him finishing in 17th position after an error on his lap.

"It was a pretty terrible qualifying and very disappointing because the car is strong here," said Button. "I had too much oversteer throughout the lap and the car was just skating around at the back. Then in the second to last corner I made a big mistake when I got a lot of oversteer and ended up running off the circuit.

"It's strange because we haven't made any changes from warm-up, when the car was quick and we still had more to come. I think that the track temperature increasing by six degrees probably had a big influence as that can really unsettle the handling.

" We should have been inside the top 10 today so this has compromised us for sure, but I'm confident that we'll be better in the race. I had a good race at Silverstone against all the odds so I'll have to pull another one out of the bag here tomorrow now."