Saturday March 25th, 2000

Jenson Button, the youngster who secured his Formula One seat with Williams after a testing shootout, impressed again on Saturday, out-qualifying team mate Ralf Schumacher at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Button, the 20-year-old Briton, brought a smile to the face of team chief Frank Williams as he took ninth position on the grid for Sunday's race. Schumacher qualified in 11th.

"I am quite happy," said Button. "But I think I could have done a lot better if I had had a chance of another run. In the end, the red flags and the interruptions and then the rain upset all that."

At one stage, Button was holding sixth place and looking strong, but he slipped down the order as time went by.

"The team did a brilliant job in changing the engine for me so quickly after it failed in the morning," the Briton said.

He added: "At the end of the session, I went out to have a look at the conditions in the wet just as a learning exercise, that's all. I think I can do quite well in the race....and I aim to give it a go. I just hope I can finish this time."

Button's teammate, Ralf Schumacher, was not too worried about being outqualified but remained level-headed about his team's chances in the race. "I don't think we are quite as competitive overall round here as we were in Melbourne, even though the grid positions would suggest otherwise," Schumacher said.

"We didn't fulfill our potential in qualifying in Australia whereas here, with Jenson's car at least, we probably did. Ninth and 11th places isn't too bad, especially considering how close the grid is - with just a second between fifth and 18th place - but from a driving point of view the car is a lot harder work than it was in Melbourne.

"There are many cambered corners here which ask a lot of the WilliamsF1 BMW FW22s damping. Also it is still a little twitchy under braking. The basic balance in the corners between the front and the rear we've eventually arrived at, I'm quite happy with. But there is still some work to do on the mechanical side of the car.

"The basics are very good, it's just a question of further development necessary. The particular characteristics of this track have drawn this to our attention.

"That said, Jenson got a great lap in and I think that was pretty close to the most we could expect from the car at the moment. From my own point of view, we decided quite late to make a change but couldn't make enough of that change. It took longer than we thought to do it. Even so Jenson's less than a tenth ahead of me.

"People ask if I'm upset by this, but no I'm not. You always want to do better, but Jenson we know already is very quick and he got a good lap in. It's only qualifying, though. It's not the race…

"As for the engine failures, we have identified where we think the problem is but obviously we cannot do anything about it here, so we'll just have to hope.

"I cannot talk about strategy or tyre choice. But I think you will see quite a few different fuel strategies tomorrow. I think there are a few strategies you could use according to where you are starting from.