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U.S. GRAND PRIX: Villeneuve secures fourht row grid position for U.S. GP

24 September 2000

Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta qualified eighth and 12th for
tomorrow's US Grand Prix, giving Lucky Strike Reynard BAR Honda an
excellent opportunity to add to this season's points haul. The one-hour
qualifying period took place under the threat of a downpour, but the
weather held off despite intermittent spots of rain.

The predicted wet weather encouraged every team to set an early lap time
and Villeneuve and Zonta were among the first on the track. Villeneuve was
into the groove straight away, and held second position by the time he
returned to his garage after his first sortie. The Canadian improved his
time on his second run, but errors on his final two runs ended any hopes
of securing the top five position that was just three tenths of a second
away. 

Ricardo Zonta was only three tenths adrift of his BAR Honda team mate. The
Brazilian was able to overcome the understeer he had experienced earlier
in the weekend and was pleased to claim a place on the sixth row of
tomorrow's grid.

The Honda RA000E engines performed well throughout the session, touching
speeds of 330km/h down the long, demanding main straight. For the first
time ever at this historic venue, the cars are running in a clockwise
direction for this weekend's Grand Prix.

Jacques Villeneuve	Position: 8th	1min 15.317sec
"That was a difficult session; the track was no grippier than yesterday
and the rain made it worse. It had just started to rain before I spun and
we had gone out in case it started to rain harder. I was actually quicker
at that point than I wanted to be to do a quick end of the lap, and I went
into the hairpin too fast. I guess I was just trying a little too hard. We
will now try to get the car to survive the whole race because it's very
slippery and the tyre pressures will go up during the race, so we need to
find a set-up that doesn't give us a crisis after ten laps."
 
Ricardo Zonta	Position: 12th	1min 15.784sec
"We made some changes to the car during the break and I think we improved
the handling quite a lot from this morning. I did my fastest lap on my
second outing, but could not improve on it. I think we got the most out of
the car today and I hope we can race well tomorrow."

Takefumi Hosaka - Managing Director, Honda R&D	
"We are not entirely satisfied with the result, of course, but the car is
better than yesterday and the engine was good, allowing the drivers to
keep the throttle open to the maximum in the fast parts without any
problems. Both drivers did a good job today in difficult conditions, and I
think Jacques has a lot of additional pressure this weekend from the
American fans. We hope for a good result tomorrow."
	
Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jarno Trulli produced an excellent team display
for Jordan Mugen-Honda in qualifying and will start the race from fifth
and seventh places respectively.