Villeneuve: No Problems with Sauber

"The partnership between Jacques Villeneuve and Sauber Petronas is currently at a difficult point," Sauber told Reuters earlier this month.

The 1997 World Champion, however, claimed Sauber had never said such a thing.

"It must have been a bad translation," said the Canadian today in Imola. "There has never been a bad moment, we have always got along. I am not sure where that came from and I think he was quite surprised himself."

Villeneuve has failed to score points so far and he was replaced by teammate Felipe Massa during testing in Barcelona earlier this month despite being scheduled to test again.

The move angered Villeneuve, although Sauber later played down his decision saying rain was expected for the final day of running and they needed Massa to run in the dry.

The Canadian is having a hard time adapting to the Sauber car, and has repeatedly claimed he needs all the testing time he can get.

"We are not getting much testing so it is just taking longer than expected to get used to it because of the lack of driving," Villeneuve told reporters today. "The mileage will come a little bit from testing, but mainly racing, on the Sunday, because with the new rules we don't do a lot of laps."

Villeneuve said both him and the team needed more time before they adapt to each other.

"You always have to adapt yourself a little bit year after year and it is even more the case when you go to a new team, new people, everyone needs to learn how to work together, how to trust each other, when you say something how trustworthy what you are saying is, and for them as well, they need to know how to trust me as well.

"It just takes time. It goes both ways."