For the second race in a row, no major stories evolved during the qualifying sessions in Portugal. Excitement in the Coulthard camp and disappointment and frustration in the Schumacher stable generated most of the media attention. My analysis of relative qualifying times shows that Michael Schumacher and Heinz-Harald Frentzen continued to dominate their teammates. Andrea Montermini completely out-classed his new partner out-qualifying Jean-Denis Deletraz by more than six seconds. Andrea would have beaten the 107 percent rule to make the grid; however, the two Forti machines and the other Pacific would never have made the grid had the 107 percent rule been in effect.
Other noteworthy performances included Coulthard's defeat of Damon Hill during qualifying for the third race in a row. Damon is unfortunately getting to know every detail of the rear end of Coulthard's Williams. Gerhard Berger whipped Jean Alesi for the sixth consecutive race, and for the first time all season, Mika Hakkinen lined up Sunday behind a teammate. Eddie Irvine continued to slip as Rubens Barrichello ran a quicker qualifying lap. Olivier Panis was beaten again, despite such a promising first half of the season.
After thirteen races, only seventeen drivers have participated each Grand Prix. Examining trends in the relative qualifying times should give us some insight into who is improving and who is falling backwards. Within the big three teams, Hill, Schumacher, and Alesi have been losing ground while Coulthard, Herbert, and Berger are improving. Although Hakkinen has generally dominated, he is gradually losing ground. Barrichello's move on Irvine is so substantial that the trend line is statistically significant. Despite total domination, Frentzen is gradually slowing with respect to his teammates.
The big story from the graph below is the marked improvement of Taki Inoue. Obviously, Taki started the year with some terrible qualifying marks. Once Gianni Morbidelli yielded the reins to Massimilian Papis, Taki became an overnight star. In case you missed this major story within the grid, Taki has out-qualified his teammate three of the last four races. Taki's improvement score of 0.473 seconds per race is unmatched. And who could ever forget that after 12 minutes of first-day qualifying in Estoril, Taki had the pole, and was undoubtedly praying for rain. Three minutes later, Damon Hill replaced Taki, and the rest is not history.
Based on trends in relative qualifying, Taki Inoue will soon be the hottest and fastest commodity in the Formula One fraternity. Given the very different circumstances for each driver, Coulthard, Herbert, Barrichello and Berger are looking better all the time. Beware, Jean-Denis Deletraz may be sandbagging--he starts poorly, improves a bit in the next few races, and suddenly, he may be the next Taki Inoue!