Hungarian GP: Honda Saturday qualifying notes

HONDA DRIVER TO START FROM SEVENTH ROW
Button and Villeneuve qualify 14th and 16th for Hungarian Grand Prix

Jenson Button qualified his B*A*R Honda 005 in 14th place for tomorrow's grid of the Hungarian Grand Prix to start the race from the seventh row while team-mate Jacques Villeneuve will start from 16th place.

Glorious weather conditions greeted the drivers in Budapest for this afternoon's final qualifying, the air and track temperatures registering 32 and 45 degrees as the session got underway.

Zsolt Baumgartner was first out on track in his Jordan Ford to the delight of the local fans. The Hungarian driver has replaced Ralph Firman for the rest of the weekend due to the Briton's accident in this morning's free practice session.

Villeneuve went out seventh to complete his one flying lap, almost 20 minutes in to the session. The Canadian recorded a time of 1m24.100s, finally qualifying in 16th position for tomorrow's race.

Button took to the track a few minutes after his team-mate, eighth in the running order. The Briton's lap of 1m23.847s qualified him in 14th place on the grid after all the runs were completed.

Fernando Alonso (Renault) will start from pole position followed by Ralf Schumacher (Williams) and Jaguar's Mark Webber. Juan Pablo Montoya (Williams), Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari) and Renault's Jarno Trulli will start from fourth, fifth and sixth position on the grid.

Shuhei Nakamoto - Engineering Director, Honda Racing Development:

"Starting from 14th and 16th on the grid is going to be tough. However, I know Jacques and Jenson will push hard in the race - we must take every opportunity to pick up some more points."

Jenson Button Position: 14th

"My lap was a little too messy I'm afraid so I'm not too happy. We made some set-up changes since warm-up but realistically I think I was pushing a little too hard and made a few mistakes. At the exit of the first corner I tried to get on the power as soon as I could but it just caused oversteer. In a few other places also I just wasn't as smooth as I could have been. I'm comfortable with our strategy for tomorrow but we really didn't want to be this far back on the grid. We have to just hope that the car can conserve the tyres so they don't go off as quickly."

"It's a very difficult circuit to drive anyway but it's very dusty and the car is bouncing around all over the place. With fuel on board and the intense heat, tomorrow is going to be very demanding physically. We've demonstrated that we are quite good at fighting when we lose out on grid placings, but we have to take a hard look at what we can do to fight for something more tomorrow."

Jacques Villeneuve Position: 16th

"The car was much better today and the first two sectors of my lap were good, but we didn't manage to keep the front tyres working until the end of the lap so the last sector was really poor. For the last four corners there was no front grip and that's where we lost all the time. It should be better for us in the race; the tyres will take five laps or so to clean up and start working but after that the car should be quick. It's still going to be a tough race though."

-honda-