French GP BAR qualifying notes

Jacques Villeneuve Car 10 12th Best time:   1:15.061 28 laps

Olivier Panis Car 9 9th Best time:   1:15.122 33 laps

Jacques Villeneuve Position: 10th Best Time: 1:14.096

"We had a reasonably good qualifying session today ^O the car was very driveable so I could push it quite well. I couldn't get turn one right ^O the high speed corner. Every lap I was losing two or three tenths compared with other drivers so there's still a bit of time in it for us. I don't think we could have improved that much more on the rest of the track today. In the last couple of races we've improved our set-up a lot and made a big step forward. We've made some positive aerodynamic developments but the competition is very strong this year. I'm looking forward to the race; as with the Nurburgring, we know we will perform very well in race trim."

Olivier Panis Position: 11th Best Time: 1:14.181

"To be honest I'm very disappointed with 11th position. I felt that, today, we had a car that was capable of maybe 7th or 8th place but we didn't get the best from it because I had bad traffic on my final flying lap. Qualifying is still difficult for us so we need to improve our performance there. But we also need to improve the car for the race tomorrow."

Craig Pollock, Team Principal and Managing Director

"The team had two good practice sessions this morning and I feel both Jacques and Olivier did a very good job in qualifying. We ran reasonably well but we're still a little disappointed with our qualifying position. We haven't yet been able to capitalise on our qualifying potential. We recognise that this is a weak area and although we have done a great deal of work and made some steady progress, there's still quite a way to go. Our past performance has shown that we are better in the race so we remain optimistic for tomorrow."

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