US GP: BAR Saturday notes

Lucky Strike B.A.R Honda drivers Jacques Villeneuve and Olivier Panis qualified 7th and 12th respectively in Indianapolis today ahead of tomorrow's 2002 United States Grand Prix. Jacques' day had started with a problematic free practice but was transformed after a steady improvement throughout qualifying which saw him secure his best grid position of the season. Olivier was unable to improve on a difficult start to his weekend, losing his two fastest runs to problems with traffic and oversteer.

Jacques Villeneuve

"I'm very pleased with 7th. After yesterday's session I felt we had the potential to make the top 10 but we had a mechanical problem this morning which cost me practice time and I really didn't get enough running to feel too confident about qualifying. As it turned out, the car felt good from the start. We made changes with every run and steadily improved throughout the session. It looks like oversteer is going to be a big problem for a lot of drivers tomorrow though. The asphalt characteristic causes you to slide a lot and you use up all the grip very quickly, so we've got a lot of work to do on race set-up to make sure the tyres don't 'go away'. I don't know what kind of race it will be but I'll try hard and hopefully get into the points at the end of it."

Olivier Panis

"The tyres reacted differently in each of my runs this afternoon. I had major oversteer on my first run but I improved a lot on my second. Then I would have gone quicker again on my third run had I not been blocked on my quick lap. However, considering how the car has been all weekend, I can consider myself lucky to qualify 12th today."

David Richards, Team Principal

"Jacques did a great job to qualify 7th today after a difficult practice this morning. He steadily improved throughout the session and starts tomorrow's race from his best grid position this season. Olivier was less lucky. His session started well but he lost out to traffic and suffered with major oversteer on his quickest runs. We still have some work to do to optimise our race set-up but we have a very good chance of securing another points finish tomorrow."

Driver/Chassis
Jacques Villeneuve
BAR004/04
Position: 7th
Best lap time: 1:11.738 (12 laps)

Olivier Panis
BAR004/08
Position: 12th
Best lap time: 1:12.161 (9 laps)
T-Car BAR004/09

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