The first qualifying session of Honda's third era of Formula One participation, brought a top eight grid position for Jacques Villeneuve and the Lucky Strike Reynard BAR Honda team in Melbourne this afternoon.

As many rivals stopped or left the track, the Canadian proved the durability of the BAR Honda 002, even in temperatures exceeding 30°C, to record his and the BAR's best starting position since Barcelona in May 1999. Team mate Ricardo Zonta was unable to capitalise on his excellent showing in free practice and a spin towards the end of the session further prevented the Brazilian from improving on 16th place.

Jacques Villeneuve Position: 8th 1min 31.968sec
"The car is well-balanced and I think we got as much from it as we could. I could perhaps have improved by two or three tenths, but I would still have been eighth. We are in the middle of the chasing pack, which is around where we expected to be. I will try to attack tomorrow and I hope we can score points. I think others will have to fall off for us to get on the podium, but this is the first race of the year and anything can happen."

Ricardo Zonta Position: 16th 1min 33.117sec
"After the good performance of yesterday, we went the wrong way on set-up this morning. Consequently, when we put new tyres on, I had a lot of understeer. On my last lap it was better, I was two tenths up, but I lost downforce behind Wurz and the back stepped out. The car ran well with lots of fuel yesterday, but with a light load we did not improve, so I'm a little disappointed."

Takefumi Hosaka Managing Director, Honda R&D
"It is good that Jacques is near the front, but we are not entirely satisfied. Qualifying is about showing your car at its very best on current form and we would have liked to be a little quicker. Tomorrow is the real start of Honda's third Formula One generation."

Kazutoshi Nishizawa Technical Director, Honda Racing Development
"We are pleased with this first qualifying session. The engine temperatures have been fine throughout, as we found in Kyalami. As this is probably the hottest race we will experience this year, we are confident with the cooling system. We had a slight problem with gearbox sensors on Ricardo's car, but overall we are quite happy."

A successful day for Honda was reinforced by the excellent qualifying performance of the Jordan Mugen Honda team. Heinz-Harald Frentzen will start tomorrow's race from fifth place, with new team mate Jarno Trulli alongside him on row three.