McLaren take the front row

It turned out to be another in-house McLaren-Mercedes for the front row of the grid for Sunday's Brazilian GP , Mika Hakkinen repeating his pole of 1998 with a time almost half a second quicker than his team-mate David Coulthard. "We made a lot of radical changes to the car even for qualifying and every change I felt more comfortable in the car although we still have not reached maximum potential," said Mika, who reckoned his biggest challenge for the race was going to come from 72 laps of the Interlagos track!

David Coulthard put his failed challenge for the pole down to ," Driving to conservatively on my first run and two aggressively on my second run."

He flat spotted a front tyre at the start of his second run which didn't help his chances. "I heard a strange noise on the radio and missed my braking point and slid wide," he said.

Schumacher makes row two for Ferrari

Although Michael Schumacher put his Ferrari on the second row of the grid with the fourth fastest time, he was disappointed to be a second off the pace of Hakkinen's McLaren. " We still have some work to do on the set-up for qualifying. I didn't expect to be a second off the pole. I had expected to be competitive at the start of the season, but we are still not there," said Michael."It's unlikely that we can close the gap between now and the race, but we have improvements to come when we move back to Europe," he added.

Eddie Irvine was delighted to end up sixth quickest. ?At one stage I didn't think I was going to get up there," said Eddie, who is hoping reliability will leave him further up the front for the race."We chose to run hard tyres today unlike some of the faster cars, so the gap isn't entirely realistic. I think we can be more competitive, It's bound to be a tough race."

Barrichello delights the home fans

"The problem was to keep my mind in the car until the end of the lap," said Rubens Barrichello who could see the thousands of Brazilian fans waving him on to third fastest time of the session. "It was one of the best laps of my life. All my life I have been waiting for a car as good. I don't think I can beat the McLarens if they stay on the track, but a win is always a possibility." Johnny Herbert did not better tenth fastest, but was confident that his race performance would be more competitive than his qualifying showing.

Fisichella happy with fifth

Giancarlo Fisichella was very happy with the performance of his Benetton and even more so to put it between the two Ferraris with fifth fastest time of the grid. "Now I have to build on that for the race," he said. Alexander Wurz was half a second slower back in ninth place, the Austrian ending his session out on the track when he pulled off with what he described as a funny noise coming from the gearbox.

Jordan pair share row four

Damon Hill and Heinz Harald Frentzen were a little disappointed at the fourth row of the grid, Hill blaming his lack of track time for not making the top six which he had expected. Frentzen blamed a slow car on his first run, a brief rain shower for spoiling his second and a mistake of his own for not getting the best from a third run. Both drivers were expecting to show better in the race.

In brief...

Williams were a disappointing 11th and 17th on the grid. Schumacher blamed a lack of testing since Melbourne for his 11th best, while Zanardi had another miserable session when he had to take the spare car. His race car was still having engine troubles. On His second run with the spare he stopped in dramatic fashion when the engine blew up. Jacques Villeneuve was struggling with the BAR, the Canadian saying that he hadn't had enough practice laps to get his car sorted and that he didn't even know which tyres he would use as he went into qualifying.

Qualifying Results:

Pos Driver        Nat  Team               Time                  
 1  Hakkinen      FIN  McLaren Mercedes   1:16.568   249.284 km/h
 2  Coulthard     GBR  McLaren Mercedes   1:16.715   + 0.147  
 3  Barrichello   BRA  Stewart Ford       1:17.305   + 0.737  
 4  M.Schumacher  GER  Ferrari            1:17.578   + 1.010  
 5  Fisichella    ITA  Benetton Playlife  1:17.810   + 1.242  
 6  Irvine        GBR  Ferrari            1:17.843   + 1.275  
 7  Hill          GBR  Jordan Mugen-Hond  1:17.884   + 1.316  
 8  Frentzen      GER  Jordan Mugen-Hond  1:17.902   + 1.334  
 9  Wurz          AUT  Benetton Playlife  1:18.334   + 1.766  
10  Herbert       GBR  Stewart Ford       1:18.374   + 1.806  
11  R.Schumacher  GER  Williams Supertec  1:18.506   + 1.938  
12  Panis         FRA  Prost Peugeot      1:18.636   + 2.068  
13  Alesi         FRA  Sauber Petronas    1:18.716   + 2.148  
14  Trulli        ITA  Prost Peugeot      1:18.852   + 2.284  
15  Diniz         BRA  Sauber Petronas    1:19.194   + 2.626  
16  Villeneuve    CAN  BAR Supertec       1:19.377   + 2.809  
17  Zanardi       ITA  Williams Supertec  1:19.452   + 2.884  
18  de la Rosa    SPN  Arrows TWR         1:19.979   + 3.411  
19  Sarrazin      FRA  Minardi Ford       1:20.016   + 3.448  
20  Takagi        JPN  Arrows TWR         1:20.096   + 3.528  
21  Gene          SPN  Minardi Ford       1:20.710   + 4.142  

All drivers within 107%
Weather: dry, heavy clouds

All Time unofficial