Saturday March 11th, 2000

Arrows chief Tom Walkinshaw, whose team announced sponsorship deals worth more than $150 million in recent weeks, said on Saturday he was disappointed with his team's performance in qualifying for Sunday's season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

Despite seeing Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa claim the best grid position of his career by securing 12th position, one ahead of team-mate Dutchman Jos Verstappen, Walkinshaw said he had hoped for a better result.

"I can't say it was what I wanted because I believe we are good enough to be in the top ten with both drivers. I think that was possible, but we didn't do it.

"I know people will look at today's qualifying results and say we have done well, compared to last year. Yes, it is a bit of a success story, but we also know we can do more and get much better results."

De la Rosa's previous best qualifying position was 18th, something he achieved three times in the 1999 season.

"It was not a brilliant session, but we have to be realistic, " he said. "It cant be all that bad when everything goes wrong and we still end up 12th on the grid. It is a shame we are not in the top 10 because the team has made such a great effort."

Walkinshaw held a launch party in Melbourne on Thursday evening to announce that the British telecommunications firm Orange had taken over title sponsorship in a $100 million three-year deal.

The team also announced other deals with Eurobet, Chello and Lost Boys to add to previous deals with Repsol and European Aviation.

The deals transformed Walkinshaw's previously struggling back-of-the-grid outfit into one of the leading mid-grid teams.