Villeneuve back to 9th on the grid

The FIA has found Jacques Villeneuve guilty of holding up Renault driver Giancarlo Fisichella in yesterday's qualifying. Jacques will move to 9th on the grid and therefore lose his 8th place to Juan Pablo Montoya. Giancarlo Fisichella on the other hand remains 11th and is still frustrated of being so far back on his pole sitting teammate Alonso.

According to stewards, Villeneuve held up Fisichella at a time when he obviously had the chance to let the Roman pass by. The FIA however also found that Jacques was not doing so deliberately. The latter may well have to do with the lack of aggrevisity by Fisichella. Renault's driver was feriously waving his hand when being blocked behind Jacques but seemed not to go very close to the Canadian. As a result, the former world champion may not have realised that Fisico was really in a hot lap.

Fisichella yesterday went to yell at Villeneuve just before Q3. Giancarlo was knocked out earlier because of being behind Villeneuve and was very angry at him. Jacques however managed to keep his cool as he still performed brilliantly in Q3, even after he got that visit from an angry Italian.

Jacques notified that he was not aware of holding up Fisichella for long and confirmed that the Renault never really came close to him.

"Fisichella seemed to be really angry and I am not exactly sure what happened. I thought I was ahead of him and I was trying to get out of his way, maybe I slowed him down a little bit but I never thought he was that close to me. I will go and talk to him because it was not done on purpose."

"I don't think I hindered him and don't know why he is furious. I saw him but I thought there was enough space."

All in all, the punishment is quite harsh for Jacques. He was lucky though that he wasn't found guilty of doing so deliberately as he may well have had to start from the back of the grid. Instead, Jacques will start in 9th place which is on the clear side of the track. Jacques' best 3 times were removed from the board but with Webber's engine change he only loses one place.

The official provisional grid, as released by the FIA on Sunday morning, follows below:
1. Alonso
2. M Schumacher
3. Massa
4. Barrichello
5. Raikkonen
6. Button
7. Trulli
8. Montoya
9. Villeneuve
10. R Schumacher
11. Fisichella
12. Coulthard
13. Heidfeld
14. Liuzzi
15. Klien
16. Albers
17. Speed
18. Monteiro
19. Webber 20. Sato
21. Montagny
22. Rosberg