Saturday 26 September 1998
Saturday free practice, 9.00 to 11.00
WEATHER CONDITIONS: wet track, drying, then sunny

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Hakkinen sets McLaren pace
Mika Hakkinen set fastest time in the closing moment of the session, the
Finn spending most of the session making minor set-up adjustments to his
McLaren-Mercedes MP4/13. He reported no technical problems and managed to
get a series of traffic-free laps, but team-mate David Coulthard got held
up by slower cars and never quite worked out a good handling balance in the
dry although the car felt fine when the circuit was wet.

Schumacher's Ferrari second
Michael Schumacher's Ferrari F300 wound up with second fastest time
0.075sec slower than Hakkinen. He only did one lap in the wet conditions
and then when the conditions dried out he did a few chassis adjustments,
but a straight-on moment over the chicane damaged a tyre. He fitted a new
set and ended up second fastest. Eddie Irvine worked on race set-up, had a
straight on moment and wound up tenth fastest.

Mixed fortunes for Jordan
Ralf Schumacher was very happy with his Jordan Mugen-Honda, benefiting from
a slight further engine development step and revised front wing end plates
on his way to third fastest time.

Damon Hill wound up 11th, encountering an engine sensor problem on his last
run with new tyres. "It is very difficult to get everything to come
together progressively," said Hill, "but we are making
progress."

Williams fifth and sixth
Jacques Villeneuve and Heinz-Harald Frentzen wound up fifth and sixth
fastest in their Williams-Mecachromes. Neither had any technical problems
and concentrated on squeezing an extra few tenths from the FW20s.
Villeneuve used two sets of tyres, Frentzen only one and the German
recovered without incident from a spectacular half spin in the closing
moments of the session.

Benetton making progress
Benetton started with wet chassis set-ups and then changed back to
yesterday's dry configuration. Alexander Wurz wound up seventh ahead of
Giancarlo Fisichella who had a straight-on moment across a gravel trap.

Alesi just pips Herbert
Jean Alesi was very unhappy with 12th fastest time, complaining of poor
grip no matter which tyre choice he made, but Johnny Herbert was slightly
happier with the chassis balance and did his best time (13th) on a used set
of the option tyres.

Arrows experimenting
Both Arrows drivers tried all three specification wet weather tyres and
will use the D-spec version of the V10 engine for qualifying only,
reverting to the C-spec for the race. Mika Salo and Pedro Diniz finished
the session 14th and 15th fastest.

Briefly:
Ricardo Rosset spun off in his Tyrrell while team-mate Tora Takagi
complained of a severe handling imbalance...both Prost-Peugeot drivers
reported they were making steady improvements, particularly as regards
traction out of corners.

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Saturday 26 September 1998
Saturday qualifying.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: dry track, light overcast

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Schumacher takes 19th career pole
Michael Schumacher took the 19th pole position of his career here today in
his Ferrari F300, lapping 0.346sec ahead of his team-mate Eddie Irvine.
Michael was very happy with the feel of his car despite making a mistake on
his first run. He fitted a revised downforce front wing for his third run
when he set quickest time. Irvine finally got rid of the understeer which
was bugging his progress and picked up time on the final sector of the lap
to take the other place on the front row.

Hakkinen a disappointed third
Mika Hakkinen's McLaren-Mercedes qualified third fastest, the Finn
reporting that he was frustratingly slow on the last sector of the lap.
"I was never anything like happy with the car," said Mika.
"In our experience problems in qualifying will be similar in the race,
so we have to hope to sort it out in the warm up and hope that the warm-up
is dry." David Coulthard had bad breaks in traffic and could only
manage fifth fastest time.

Fisichella splits the McLarens
Giancarlo Fisichella's Benetton-Playlife split the McLarens and the Italian
felt he might have challenged Hakkinen for third place on the grid had he
not made a slight mistake on his best lap. Alexander Wurz wound up eighth
fastest after losing time in traffic.

Jordan complete the third row
Ralf Schumacher's Jordan Mugen-Honda qualified sixth fastest, the German
driver surviving a high speed spin at the same corner which caught out his
brother early in the session. "I had to take the risk to try and catch
Coulthard," he said. Damon Hill was a slightly disappointed tenth,
still working on set-up and also punctuating his session with a spin.

Williams seventh and ninth
Heinz-Harald Frentzen ended up seventh fastest despite not being totally
comfortable with the chassis set-up on his Williams FW20, while Jacques
Villeneuve could never quite dial out the understeer from his car and wound
up two places further back.

Briefly:
Jean Alesi's Sauber-Petronas wound up 11th, still reporting that he was
handicapped by high speed understeer. Johnny Herbert put on more downforce
which improved the feel of his car and he managed 13th overall...Rubens
Barrichello set 12th fastest time in his Stewart-Ford, complaining of acute
lack of grip...Olivier Panis lost too much time with transmission troubles
this morning...Mika Salo complained of poor grip while Pedro Diniz's Arrows
suffered an oil pump failure and he had to take the spare Arrows A19.

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