Villeneuve 'satisfied' but Herbert 'disappointed'

Monaco.
The Canadian, who lives in the Mediterranean tax haven, did not manage to match his fifth place at the last race in Monaco, but a car in the top 10 signals the growing strength of British American Racing.

'I am quite satisfied with eighth place,' said Villeneuve who has only finished in the top five in three visits to Monte Carlo.

'The car went well, allowed me to push hard and was fun to drive. Unfortunately it is difficult to find the right set up in this circuit and we didn't manage to improve during qualifying and stayed at the same level as this morning.

'I think that the race is going to be difficult, but we all know that anything is possible here and we will need to be patient and not make any mistakes to finish the race.'

Team-mate Mika Salo, fourth here last year in an uncompetitive Arrows, is racing for the last time as a replacement for the injured Ricardo Zonta. He was not so happy with 12th.

'I completely missed the morning session because of a gear selection problem. That affected qualifying because I could not get a good set-up. It's too bad because the car's performance is good. It was just a matter of getting more laps'.

Behind Salo is Johnny Herbert, who saw his chances of a top 10 qualifying place wrecked after Damon Hill's Jordan broke down.

The Stewart driver, whose team-mate Rubens Barrichello, qualified fifth, was forced to back off after yellow warning flags were raised by race marshalls with Hill's car stranded.

'I'm disappointed to end up 13th,' admitted Herbert, whose best result in Monaco was third in 1996.

'My times showed that on my last flying lap I could have clinched eighth spot but I had to back off in the last sector when the yellow flags came out.

'But the car felt very good in practice this morning on full tanks so I have to be confident about my chances in the race."