Sauber drivers Felipe Massa and Jacques Villeneuve achieved 11th and 14th positions respectively after this afternoon's first qualifying session, so tomorrow they will start final qualifying 10th and seventh in the running order.

Jacques Villeneuve: "The balance of the car was not too bad this afternoon, so really I expected to be faster. Sometimes this season it's been a problem for me getting the best out of the tyres over a single lap, but the gap was quite big today. The car felt okay but that grip situation seemed to be a little bit extreme here, so I'm mystified."

Felipe Massa: "I had a good lap and the balance was okay, a bit of understeer here and some oversteer there, probably because of the wind, but nothing too bad. With a similar performance in tomorrow's final qualifying I think we can do a good job in the race."

Peter Sauber (Team Principal): "After the significant improvement we made in Imola we expected more here. But Felipe has the potential to start the race in the first five rows so therefore it should be possible to score more points."