Button buoyed by second downpour

Jenson Button was left thanking the unpredictable Melbourne weather after rain in first qualifying kept his hopes of victory in the Australian Grand Prix alive.

The BAR-Honda driver looked to be destined for a disastrous qualifying result after being forced to take to the Albert Park track in the wet.

As soon as Button had completed his lap, the track dried and allowed a clutch of cars to lap significantly quicker than the Englishman, who seemed certain to be starting tomorrow’s race from the wrong end of the grid.

But the weather had another twist in store and a torrential downpour midway through the session scuppered a dozen of his rivals, leaving him eighth despite lagging over eight seconds off provisional pole position man Giancarlo Fisichella.

“It is a relief to be eighth,” he said. “We thought we were going to be really unlucky and end up towards the back.

“We needed the rain at the end because really it was the first lap I’d done in practice with a proper BAR so it was not the easiest.”

Button now expects to start in the top 10, with several key rivals destined to line up way down on the grid.

Times from tomorrow’s second qualifying are added to today’s laps to determine the grid, but with nearly half a minute separating top from bottom, little is likely to change.

Button said: “There’s not going to be a lot of change tomorrow to the grid.

“There might be for Juan Pablo Montoya, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso, they might gain a couple more places by overtaking the Jordans and the Minardis, but as long as no-one makes any mistakes the grid is going to be very similar.”

Button revealed his preparations for qualifying were hit by a set-up problem which left his BAR nearly impossible to drive in the practice sessions.

Overnight changes backfired but when the team reverted to yesterday’s set-up Button was able to return to his normal pace.

He added: “It’s been a very tough day for me because we changed the rear end from yesterday to today and I’ve had some huge problems with the car. It’s been undriveable.

“Compared to [team-mate] Takuma Sato I haven’t been able to get within five seconds so you know there’s something wrong.

“We changed the rear before qualifying and the car was like it should be, it was like a proper racing car.

“It was very disappointing but at least we know where we are now and that’s positive in a way – at least we know we have a good car for tomorrow.”

Team-mate Sato did not even set a lap time after crashing on his warm-up lap.

The Japanese driver left the pits with unsuitable tyres and paid the penalty when he slid into a concrete wall just a few corners later as the rain poured down.

Sato admitted he was unlikely to set a qualifying time anyway, so bad were the conditions.

“That was one of the unluckiest moments,” he said. “Unfortunately the intermediate tyres couldn’t cope with that type of rain.

“There was nothing I could do. I was just a passenger. I am really disappointed.

“I was on the radio to the team saying it was really difficult and almost impossible to drive. I was going to come back to the pits because there was no point.”