Australian GP Sauber qualifying notes

Nick Heidfeld (driver): The car has been consistently good all weekend, and I'm happy with 10th place. But I could have gone quicker still. I was following Burti on my out lap when he had his accident, and that took a little bit out of my tyres. Then when the track went green again, I came across Fisichella as he went into the gravel and had to come to a full stop, so that was my last attempt gone. That was a shame, but we are in a good position for the race, and I'm pleased that changes we made during qualifying all helped to make the car perform even better.

Kimi Raikkonen (Driver): I lost half of the morning with an engine sensor problem that required removal of the gearbox before it could be fixed, but things went well after that and I was very happy subsequently to set the eighth fastest time. I suppose I'm a little bit disappointed to be 'only' 13th on the grid after that, because I believe I could have made the top 10. But my first-ever F1 qualifying session went pretty well and I'm happy. I started off with understeer and ended with oversteer after we made changes to the car, but the real problem was traffic on my last run which prevented me from improving.

Peter Sauber (Team Principal): Perhaps the red flag spoiled qualifying for us, but we are happy because our goal was to have a car in the top 10. Nick did a very good job and has been consistently fast, so it was a shame that he lost his last chance in traffic. Likewise Kimi Raikkonen suffered on his final run, but 13th place in his first F1 qualifying is really good. He did an extremely good job.

-Sauber