Villeneuve spins away qualifying chances
Under-pressure Jacques Villeneuve, who could be in his last season of Formula 1, failed to set a time in first qualifying for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim when he spun at the first corner of his flying lap for BAR-Honda
Villeneuve aborted his lap and came into the pits, and will be second on track in tomorrow's final qualifying session.
"I went through the first corner a little bit too fast, but not by that much," said Villeneuve. "We made some set-up changes after this morning's session and the effect was bigger than expected. I just went sideways and lost it. The car felt good until that point and suddenly the rear started sliding a bit but not a big snap. It wasn't something that took me by surprise, it happened very slowly.
"I think we have a good car balance and the car was good on old tyres this morning. It's better that we had this problem today rather than tomorrow but now we have a lot of work to do to get a good result in final qualifying."
His team-mate Jenson Button was 12th fastest, but the third of the Bridgestone runners.
Button said: "Compared to the Ferrari we're only three tenths away from Michael, but there's a bigger gap between ourselves and the Williams at the moment. Who knows though? A lot of people have been using a tyre that may be good for qualifying but possibly not so good for the race, so we'll have to wait and see how that pans out."
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