Sauber drivers Felipe Massa and Jacques Villeneuve achieved 10th and 16th positions respectively after this afternoon's first qualifying session, so tomorrow they will start final qualifying 11th and fifth in the running order.

Jacques Villeneuve: "A very disappointing qualifying, after the progress we made this morning. The car was going a lot better for me then than at the previous races, but I picked up a lot of understeer on my qualifying lap and couldn't complete it without going wide in the last corner. Like I said, very disappointing."

Felipe Massa: "That was a good lap. When you consider our strategy I am very happy with it. I didn't make any mistakes. I was a little worried about qualifying, to be honest, but we made a big step forward with the car since this morning and I went quicker even though it was hotter, so I'm feeling good. We know we are going to be stronger in the race, so I hope I can keep close to this place in second qualifying and then be in a position to fight hard tomorrow afternoon."

Peter Sauber (Team Principal): "Felipe did an excellent lap and was the only driver to improve his time from this morning, even though the track temperature went up some 13 degrees. We are very happy with this result. It gives us another top 10 qualifying position with the SAUBER PETRONAS C24, which we have been able to improve further since Melbourne. Unfortunately, Jacques struggled with understeer after a competitive first sector, which led to him losing more time in the last corner."