Summary

Jacques Villeneuve will again start a race from pole position. The Canadian clocked a time of 1m 23.303s. Heinz-Harald Frentzen was also looking good but he could not quite make it. Michael Schumacher took the third spot on the grid.

Notes

• Eddie Jordan has serious problems ahead of this weekend's race after a feud between drivers Ralf Schumacher and Giancarlo Fisichella broke out again. Schumacher tangled with Fisichella putting him out of the race in Argentina. "Our friendship is finished," the Italian declared. "We can still work together when we are at the circuit, but when we are away from it there will be nothing."
  Provided by Anthony van der Draai from the Netherlands
• Everybody is using the soft tyre compound.
• Tyrrell is still using the strange extra wings on the cars.
• Coulthard used the T car because he crashed in the morning session.
• Larini is using the spare car because of electrical problems.
• Diniz is using the spare Arrows for the first part of the session because of technical problems with his race car.
• Katayama had technical difficulties all day and just managed to get his car into the 107% rule time.
• Alesi spins off and continues in the T car.
• Verstappen, Katayama, Ralf Schumacher and Alesi have gone of the track but they all can continue.
• Arrows boss Tom Walkinshaw was furious because of the very small pit boxx the Arrows team have this weekend.
• Williams drivers Jacques Villeneuve and Heinz-Harald Frentzen have received a suspended one race ban after ignoring the yellow flag in qualifying today. The suspended ban will be lifted if nothing serious happens in the next two races.
• Weather during session: Dry, Sunny (19 Degrees)

Villeneuve (Williams) Frentzen (Williams) M. Schumacher (Ferrari) Panis (Prost) R. Schumacher (Jordan) Fisichella (Jordan) Herbert (Sauber) Hakkinen (McLaren) Irvine (Ferrari) Coulthard (McLaren) Berger (Benetton) Larini (Sauber) Barrichello (Stewart) Alesi (Benetton) Hill (Arrows) Magnussen (Stewart) Diniz (Arrows) Nakano (Prost) Salo (Tyrrell) Trulli (Minardi) Verstappen (Tyrrell) Katayama (Minardi) 107% rule

1m 23.303s 1m 23.700s 1m 23.955s 1m 24.075s 1m 24.081s 1m 24.596s 1m 24.723s 1m 24.812s 1m 24.861s 1m 25.077s 1m 25.371s 1m 25.544s 1m 25.579s 1m 25.729s 1m 25.743s 1m 26.192s 1m 26.253s 1m 26.712s 1m 26.852s 1m 26.960s 1m 27.428s 1m 28.727s 1m 29.134s

The Quotes

• Villeneuve: "I felt a problem in my back after ten laps in practice on Friday, so it will be a factor in a 62 lap race. You just have to hit the brakes so much harder compared to last. You are pulling so much more G-force, it's caused the problem. (...) That was the closest qualifying we've had. It was very stressful at times and very interesting."

• Frentzen: "My season starts at Imola. I have made some progress and I want to show that I can beat Villeneuve or else it becomes boring."

• M. Schumacher: "The gap to the Williams is not as big as in the previous races. Tomorrow I think we can get on the podium and if we get our race strategy right, then I could finish higher than my starting position. The car handles well, especially in race trim. Unlike at this race last year, I do not expect to have brake problems tomorrow as we have done a good job in this area."

• Coulthard after his morning crash: "I banged my head which ached for a bit, but everything is fine now."

• Jordan on the driver feud: "I will decide who can overtake who and where over the radio."

• Irvine: "I am very disappointed, because my car was really good this morning. On my first run I had a lot of understeer. Twice we made some small modifications which had no effect. Then, before my last run we stiffened the rear end and made changes to the front wing. This cured some of the understeer, but it upset the brake balance. The car is better in race trim so it should be a different story tomorrow and a good pit-stop strategy could help me make up some places."

• Verstappen: "The car was feeling OK this morning and we managed to go quicker each time, although we were experiencing some understeer. We had some work to do on this in the afternoon but we were not able to get on the track for long enough. Every time I went out, the air pressure dropped on the first lap so I had to come back to the pits. We have not found the problem yet, but I hope we will overnight, because we have lost time to get the set up right."

• Salo: "We tried running without the new X-wings this afternoon, but the additional speed that we produced on the straights was only a couple of kilometres per hour and the car did not handle as well, so we put them back on. The encouraging thing about this is that we are obviously generating extra downforce with little increase in drag. I am sure we will keep them on for the weekend."