Saturday March 30th, 2002

Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella admitted his team were not competitive enough in today's qualifying at the Interlagos circuit.

"Yesterday I thought we could squeeze into the top ten, but with temperatures and track conditions today it wasn't possible, which is obviously very disappointing," admitted Fisichella.

"I believe we got the maximum out of the car but it is clear that our package just was not competitive enough today."

The Italian driver, despite being the quickest of the Honda runners today, finished in a disappointing 14th place that will make it very hard for the Jordan team to score their first points of the year.

Teammate Takuma Sato was 19th quickest, the Japanese driver losing his fastest lap as a consequence of yesterday's penalty. The Japanese rookie, who crashed into the back of Fisichella at the Malaysian Grand Prix, is just hoping to see the chequered flag tomorrow.

"Qualifying was always going to be difficult for me because due to the penalty imposed on me, I had one less chance to make a good lap time," he said. "I was hoping to go quicker in the last outing but in the last corner I had a big moment and also got caught up in traffic. We hope that we can run a reliable race to the finish tomorrow."

Published at 19:57:57 GMT