Spanish GP: Honda Saturday qualifying notes

B*A*R HONDA DRIVER TO START FROM THIRD ROW
Button and Villeneuve qualify fifth and 11th at Circuit de Catalunya

Lucky Strike B*A*R Honda's Jenson Button qualified in fifth place for tomorrow's grid of the Spanish Grand Prix to start the race from the third row while Jacques Villeneuve will line up in 11th position.

The track temperature rose from 15 degrees to a high of 29 during the two 45 minute free practice sessions at Barcelona this morning. Button and Villeneuve completed 61 laps between them and finished eighth and 12th overall. Villeneuve spun off at the end of the second session and damaged the rear end of his car, but there were only two minutes left and the rear end had to be replaced anyway, as the engine is always changed before qualifying.

The weather continued to improve and the track temperature soared to 35 degrees as the final qualifying session kicked off at 2pm. Villeneuve and Button took to the track ninth and 16th in the running order as the drivers go out in reverse of yesterday's times. The Canadian recorded a time of 1m19.563s, finally qualifying in 11th place after all the runs were completed. Twenty minutes later his British team-mate was on track for his qualifying lap. Button put in a quick and tidy lap, setting a time of 1m18.704s and ending up fifth for the start of tomorrow's race, the best final qualifying performance for the team.

Ferrari's Michael Schumacher secured pole position with team-mate Rubens Barrichello joining him on the front row. Third and fourth spot were taken by the Renault pairing of Fernando Alonso and Jarno Trulli while B*A*R Honda's Jenson Button and Toyota's Olivier Panis will line up fifth and sixth on the grid.

Shuhei Nakamoto - Engineering Director, Honda Racing Development:

"Qualifying on the third and sixth row gives us a good chance to score some more points. Overall the weekend has been encouraging for us so I'm quite positive about tomorrow and I'm sure both drivers will have a strong race."

Jenson Button Position: 5th

"I'm really pleased with fifth today. It felt like a quick lap but I did make a couple of mistakes. I pushed a bit too hard in some of the corners and got a bit of oversteer but it's nothing that can't be sorted out for tomorrow. It's been a very positive weekend so far. We've made solid progress towards the race and that's shown itself in qualifying today. I think our strategy is the right way to go so I hope we can turn that into a good result for the team tomorrow."

Jacques Villeneuve Position: 11th

"It was a good clean lap; nothing special but I'm quite happy. Compared with yesterday, our two cars are a lot closer together considering our respective strategies. We were a little bit lost yesterday and the car was undriveable but we've been able to work on that for today. I'm happy with our strategy and Jenson's lap showed that we have a good set-up going into the race. We're looking strong compared to other Bridgestone runners."

-honda-