MANAMA, April 5, 2008 (AFP) - French driver Sebastian Bourdais is hopeful he will be able to fight for a points-scoring finish in Sunday´s Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Toro Rosso driver managed to make it though to Q2 for the first time in Saturday´s qualifying session.

And now he believes he is more settled into Formula One after two races and ready to make progress.

He wound up 15th and thinks he has the race speed to finish in the top eight.

"My first time in Q2. We came close before and now we have made it,"

"The cars we are racing against are in similar positions, so we could not really expect much more. I had hoped to be a contender for twelfth if we´d had a perfect qualifying but clearly the gap is too big.

"I think we did the best with what we had and the team worked well, worked really hard. We can take satisfaction from that, keep on working and wait for the new car.

"In race trim yesterday, the car was quite good over two long runs and its pace was fairly consistent. If we get to the finish and others have problems, maybe we can aim to be in the points."

Team-mate German Sebastian Vettel was unable to make the cut after Q1 and had to settle for a disappointing 19th place after struggling with his car´s set-up.

"I am disappointed not to have got further than Q1," he said. "It has been difficult all weekend and yesterday we struggled to set up the car and we still haven´t found the right set up. That made qualifying difficult as you need everything to be right on the car to produce one quick flying lap.

"We were not strong enough. Of course, it is partly down to me as I drive the car! Struggling with the set-up, I felt it was more a case of the car driving me than me driving the car."