Monaco: Rubens in the Press Conference

Rubens, on your birthday. You have been very quick all weekend and no doubt you were eyeing the pole here.

Well, qualifying went very well. I had good pace all through. Every day, actually, the car has been good. Honestly I thought I had the upper hand on Jenson today. It was going very well and my lap on the end was very good. That's why I congratulated him as he must have had a fantastic lap as my lap was really good and I am happy with it. There wasn't anything more I could have done. Yeah, you can push a little bit here and there but I have got to say I am really happy with all the work and I am sorry that on my birthday I didn't get pole position. I hope to get two better tomorrow.

Not quite the birthday present you were hoping for but you still can't be unhappy with it.

No, quite honestly I've had a great Saturday. Did everything I had to do in the morning, setting the car up and everything, so I was extremely happy. My fastest lap throughout the weekend is on a used set of tyres, which is quite amazing, to be honest with you, and we need to make an exercise to see why the new tyres are not working so much for me. As you could see, I did a 1m14.8s and with fuel in the car I did a 1m15.0s, so I've got to be extremely happy with that. I honestly, in front of him (Jenson Button), I can say I thought I had the upper hand because I had a good lap. I had everything and he did a 15.7s when I did a 15.4s, so I wasn't expecting… I was expecting someone to be around me and with the time that Kimi set, I was of course expecting something good, but I never thought Jenson could do a 14.9s. It is his fastest lap of the weekend, on the fuel, so it's a pretty amazing lap. So as soon as I got out of the car I asked him how he did it because I've done (those laps) the whole weekend but not when it mattered. I am extremely happy. I did all I could do for the whole weekend and hopeful for tomorrow. My car is running well on a used set and we have plenty of laps on used sets tomorrow.

This is your best grid position in 17 qualifying sessions around here; what are your thoughts on the circuit?

I tell you, I love this place in qualifying and today my thought was 'don't leave anything, don't leave even a hair for you to think oh, I should have done better.' I tell you, round the swimming pool I almost went flat through there. It was fantastic, I'm really proud of what I've achieved today. Unfortunately, it's still a tenth away from pole but I've got to be happy. Like I said, I've left nothing out of my car.