Saturday March 16th, 2002

Italian Giancarlo Fisichella is hoping for a positive result in tomorrow's Malaysian Grand Prix after qualifying in ninth place with his Jordan on Saturday.

The Roman driver was one of the men who had to retire at the start of the Australian Grand Prix in the mayhem of the first corner, and after setting the ninth quickest time in today's qualifying, Fisichella was pleased and looking forward to a strong race.

"Today was a pretty good performance," said Fisichella, who was the fastest of the Honda runners ahead of BAR's Jacques Villeneuve. "Our target was to be in the top eight and we are just outside that, so I am happy. The balance of the car was good.

"I made some mistakes on the last runs so might have been able to improve on the lap time a little, but basically I think we found the limit today. The goal for tomorrow is to finish the race and to do so in the points."

Rookie Takuma Sato qualified in 15th place with the second Jordan, a step forward compared to the Australian Grand Prix, where the Japanese driver had to start from the back of the grid after failing to set a time within the mandatory 107 per cent.

"After the problems we had in Melbourne this was my first real experience of Formula One qualifying and I am relatively satisfied with the performance," said Sato. "Overall I am quite happy and very much looking forward to building on today's performance in tomorrow's race."

Published at 07:55:27 GMT