British GP Benetton qualifying notes

The Mild Seven Benetton Renualt Sport team will start the British Grand Prix from 18th and 19th places on the grid, after Jenson Button set a best time of 1m24.123s and Giancarlo Fisichella set a lap time of 1m24.275s in an overcast qualifying session at Silverstone.

Jenson Button
"Things looked a bit more promising yesterday and earlier today. We switched tyre compounds this morning, which improved the car considerably, but we were unable to put a time together in the end.

"During my first run I had understeer in the high-speed corners and we need to look hard to identify why. I am naturally unhappy with my position, even though I am ahead of Giancarlo. There are a number of issues we need to look at before we take our next step forward."

Giancarlo Fisichella
"I didn't do many laps in the dry yesterday, but even so things wouldn't have been too bad if I hadn't been held up by other cars during my last two runs," he explained.

"I think I could have been about 16th, which doesn't sound great, but we have closed the gap to some of the teams ahead. Silverstone is one of the circuits that least suits our car at the moment, so I am a little bit more confident for the future."

The Mild Seven Benetton Renualt Sport team will next be on track for the Sunday morning warm-up session at 0830, ahead of the afternoon's 2001 British Grand Prix which gets underway at 1300 local time.

Mike Gascoyne
"For qualifying we decided to use the harder of the two tyres available, because we feel this will be a much better race tyre. The balance of the car was generally good, but as the track improved, we failed to pick up as much time as our competitors.

"Giancarlo encountered traffic in the final sector on his fastest lap, which cost him half a second, and neither driver was able to improve significantly on his final run because of traffic.

"Both drivers struggled in Sector 1, which confirms to us that we need further to improve the car's aerodynamics. I am sure we are on the right tyre for the race tomorrow, however, and we must look for a strong, reliable race performance."