By nGO
July 2 2006

The great work done by the team allowed Sato to drive a perfect lap, he qualifies 18th. In contrast Montagny bares another reliability issue preventing him from setting a competitive lap time, he will start 20st after Rosberg was sent to the back for disobeying orders to enter the weigh bridge and Luizzi changes engines.

Today was a tale of two halves, as Sato drove immaculately to the limit, to give Super Aguri their best qualifying performace to date. Montagny was hampered yet again by an electronics problem which has seemed to plague him too often, as a result he could not lap on the pace. Sato will start tomorrow's race in 18th place, Montagny will start 20th on the grid.

Sato thankful to his team, their hard work giving Sato and the team their best qualifying performance to date he set a best time of 1:13.496, “It was a fantastic Qualifying session. We made good progress throughout the practice sessions and the car has felt good all weekend. To be able to set our best Qualifying position and to be competitive in quite gusty and very hot conditions is great. I am extremely happy to be in this position for the race tomorrow and would like to thank everyone in the team for their hard work so far this weekend.”

Frustration mounts for Montagny as he bares the brunt of Super Aguri's Reliability issues, he set a best time of 1:16.036, "It has been a bad day, again. During Qualifying we had another problem and this cannot keep happening every race weekend. It makes it extremely difficult to concentrate on what you are supposed to be doing because you have to focus on solving the problems and not on making progress. I hope we have a better day tomorrow but right now I am very disappointed about this Qualifying position for me."

Aguri happy for Taku, sorry for Franck, "The team did a very good job today.  Our only problem, but a major one, was with the electronics on Franck's car. I do not know why this continues to happen, but we have to find a solution. Setting a Qualifying time is so important and I feel very sorry for Franck.  The opposite can be said of Taku’s session today. He did a very good job, his qualifying time was perfect and his car was performing well. Taku’s mechanics and engineers did a great job today and I am very happy that we finished in 18^th position for the first time. I am especially happy for Taku as he enjoys this circuit and has fond memories from the US Grand Prix in 2004 when he achieved his first podium. I hope that we have a good race tomorrow and a good result from both Taku and Franck."