"I braked at the same spot for Ste Devote as usual on that first run, but the track was slippery, I locked up and slid into the barrier. In hindsight, I should have gone down the escape road rather than make the corner, and that mistake really spoiled the session for me," he said in a press release.

"The guys did a great job to convert the spare car to my settings in a very short time, but even so it wasn't the same as the race car and it also wasn't fitted with power steering.

"In the end, we qualified, which is what counts, but I felt it was at least possible to split the Jaguars, or maybe even outqualify both of them today."

Mark Webber was just as disappointed with his 19th place, after securing eighth in Thursday practice, which had boded well for today.

"It was a very frustrating day because I damaged the car when I slid on Irvine's oil in the second session (practice), with the result that were in a slightly difficult position for qualifying," he explained.

"The guys did an amazing job, however, to get the car ready for this afternoon's session. I had quite a good lap on my second run and was looking forward to the next two runs.

"Unfortunately when I left to start the third run I had hydraulic problems and had to be pulled back to the pits. This meant we were out on track very late for my last possible run once the problem had been fixed and I found Felipe Massa in front of me driving around 15 km/h slower, so there was no chance of improving my lap time.

"It's difficult for everybody here at Monaco, but I really feel we should have been ahead of Villeneuve. We know we could have done much better, but it just didn't happen in the last fifteen minutes of the session."