British GP 1998 - Qualifying, Comments

Drivers

Jean Alesi

"We have made gradual progress setting up the car this weekend and I
am quite happy now with the way it performed on the last tyre from
Goodyear. It is now better than it was during the test here last week, and
I believe that we have a good set-up to race tomorrow."


Rubens Barrichello

"Whatever I tried with the set-up didn't seem to improve the handling
of the car. I couldn't even manage to match the times I recorded in testing
which is very frustrating. I must say the last two years at Silverstone in
qualifying have been sessions I would rather forget. All I can do is drive
well and hope for reliability in the race."


David Coulthard

"Today's result is not what I had wanted for my home Grand Prix, but
there has to be a reason so we will look through the data and try to
establish what has gone wrong. It seems strange that I was slower this
afternoon in qualifying than I was in practice this morning but once we
have looked at the overlays I believe we will be able to make some
improvements."


Giancarlo Fisichella

"I am really disappointed to be on the sixth row at Silverstone.
Alexander and I did as much as we could, but were unable to improve our
position. The problem is not with the set-up, but with the continuing lack
of grip and this is what we now need to work hard on."


Mika Hakkinen

"It is great to be on pole here at the team's home Grand Prix and I am
extremely happy for them. Everyone did a great job to provide me with a car
with such a good balance and which could be improved all the time. We have
to take a close look at the tyre situation and see what can be done to
re-establish Bridgestone's superiority. Nevertheless to be almost half a
second ahead is a lot in Formula One."


Johnny Herbert

"I don't think it could have been much closer between Jean and I.
Maybe if I'd squashed a couple more flies at high speed the nose of my car
would have been long enough to cut the timing beam a fraction before his
did! The handling of the car was horrible this morning. It was twitchy, and
massive understeer would suddenly become flick oversteer exiting corners.
But we calmed it down and once we got the balance right we were able to
improve the ride too. By qualifying it felt as good as it had in
Magny-Cours. It it stays dry tomorrow we know we have a very good race
set-up, so I am determined to get some points."


Damon Hill

"I am disappointed really as I was so hoping that I could do something
special on my last run and I do not feel I got the best lap I could. I
think there was potential to do better, but I gave it everything I had and
kept coming up with the same lap time. But the very fact that I am
disappointed shows how far we have improved. It is a tantalisingly small
gap between us and third place on the grid which I believe was reachable,
so that is annoying. We are looking much stronger now. I think everyone in
the team at Jordan and at Honda should be congratulated as all the hard
work is showing we are heading back on the right course, which I am very
pleased about.

For the race tomorrow, if it is wet it makes it all the more difficult to
predict and I think survival is the best tactic. I hope it doesn't rain too
much as Silverstone is tricky in the wet, but the forecast is for storms,
so it could be interesting!"


Eddie Irvine

"I am disappointed not to have beaten Coulthard but I do not think I
could have done Villeneuve's time. I had a bit too much understeer in the
last two corners and I made a slight mistake in the first section on my
quick lap. The car was very good and I think it will be the same for the
race. Tyres will not be a factor tomorrow. Starting fifth is probably
better than fourth because it is the best side of the grid and my target is
definitely another podium. Today I think I got the maximum I could out of
my car and considering the other teams test more than we do here, this is a
good result."


Michael Schumacher

"I am very satisfied with second place on the grid. I could have been
even closer as the first section on my last run was looking good, but I
locked a wheel at Abbey and ran wide. However, I do not think I could have
got the pole. In general we are closer than I expected. I thought this
track would be more difficult for us. The tyres are again working very well
here, which puts us in good shape for the race."


Ricardo Rosset

"We were chasing a low-speed handling problem most of today, and
although we didn't get rid of it completely, we managed to neutralise it
enough with chassis adjustments and fresh tyres that I was able to put in a
couple of reasonable laps on my last two runs. The only good thing about
starting from the back of the grid is that if we do have a wet race
tomorrow, hopeful I can avoid other peoples accidents. If we can stay on
the track and have good pit stops, hopefully we'll have a chance of a
decent result."


Ralf Schumacher

"Considering that the qualifying was full of difficult incidents for
me, I think the performance was reasonable; I am satisfied with it,
although obviously I had been hoping to do better. I spun at Abbey because
I went in quickly and lost the rear. I tried to keep the engine alive but
it died. The T car ran fine after we changed it to my set up, but it never
feels like your own race car and you can't go for a time in the same
way."


Toranosuke Takagi

"For some reason I couldn't get my car going as well this afternoon as
I did this morning. It's disappointing because I felt we could have been
the fastest Ford-powered qualifier once again. Now we will just concentrate
on getting ready for the race. If it rains tomorrow and we have a wet Grand
Prix, anything can happen."


Jos Verstappen

"Not the best place to be on the grid for tomorrow's race. The car has
actually improved throughout today but we are still a long way off from
where we want to be. Unfortunately due to its layout, Silverstone is a
track which highlights any problems you have with handling. Now all I can
hope for is a good race tomorrow and if it rains well who knows?"


Alexander Wurz

"It was a very difficult session today. We changed a few things on the
car and managed to make the set-up better, but we are struggling with grip.
I am quite happy with the tyres, but I'm more concerned by the distance
between us and the cars in front. I am not going to beat myself up about
it, but twelfth place doesn't make for a good day."


Teams

Benetton

Nick Wirth, Chief Designer
"Obviously we are very disappointed with this result. Despite a number
of set-up changes on both cars we were unable to achieve the right balance
and generate the grip we achieved in testing. The circuit conditions and
the weather made it difficult to attain the correct tyre temperature. We
are going to look at ways overnight to solve the problem before the race
tomorrow."


Ferrari

Jean Todt, Team Chief
"We can be satisfied with Michael on the front row and Eddie in fifth
place. In these conditions it should be a hard fought race tomorrow. We
knew that Silverstone would be difficult for us and therefore we can be
pleased with today's performance. Tomorrow will be a hard race and we will
try and get the maximum number of points for both championships."


Jordan

Eddie Jordan, Team Owner
"This a little disappointing really, but I think the team dealt very
well with the pressures qualifying brought. If it rains tomorrow, it could
all change!"


McLaren

Ron Dennis, Team Chief
"Following testing last week we knew that the competition this weekend
was going to be very close and that proved to be the case. Mika did an
excellent job of qualifying on pole, whilst David struggled to optimise his
car. We have good race set ups so tomorrow will be about race
strategy."

Norbert Haug, Technical Director of Mercedes-Benz
"This is the tenth pole position for our team since Nurburgring last
year and I am happy for Mika who has achieved the seventh pole position of
his career. We definitely need to improve the tyre situation and I am sorry
for David who will certainly be better in the race."


Sauber

Peter Sauber, Team Owner
"With both cars in the top 10 this is our best qualifying result this
seson, and all the more impressive because it is on the home track of the
British teams. It is never easy to make a step forward in the middle of the
season, so congratulations and thanks are due to the whole team and both
drivers."


Stewart

Paul Stewart, Managing Director
"Naturally we are extremely disappointed to qualify where we did. Both
drivers did all they could under the circumstances but basically we have a
fundamental problem with the car which we have not been able to overcome.
We are plagued by mid-corner understeer which affected us more in
qualifying today than it has in the past. We were not particularly
competitive during last week's test but we were not struggling anywhere
near like we were today. It is actually quite difficult to pinpoint the
exact source of the problem. One of the drivers will try the T-car tomorrow
morning to see if there is a similar pattern. We will be working hard to
investigate why the car is behaving like it is in an effort to resolve
it."

Alan Jankins, Technical Director
"It's very disappointing for everybody in the team for the car to be
performing so poorly here at our home Grand Prix. We cannot find either
grip or consistent balance to reproduce testing times from last week or
even before the Canadian Grand Prix. Both drivers tried very hard and the
fact that each produced his best lap at the end of the session is a credit
to them. We have more of a problem getting a good time from new tyres than
we do on used ones so we can at least hope for a more respectable
performance in the race."

Martin Whitaker, Ford European Director of Motorsport
"The team is naturally concerned about the problems it has with the
car's handling. As a result, we have unfortunately not been able to realise
the potential of what we believe to be a strong new development of the
Zetec-R V10. Both drivers have commented very positively on the performance
of the Series 5 throughout the day and we are all hopeful that the
difficulties experienced in the last few days can be overcome as quickly as
possible."


Tyrrell

Dr Harvey Postlethwaite, Managing Director
"It is hard to understand why Tora was unable to repeat his previous
day's performance in qualifying. From where we are on the grid our race
will now be difficult especially as tomorrow we are not able to use the P10
version of the Ford Zetec-R engine. I hope it rains!"

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