Canadian GP Bridgestone Saturday Qualifying Notes

Montreal, June/ 12/ 1999 1999 CANADIAN GRAND PRIX -- QUALIFYING

Michael breaks Mika's sequence

After taking pole position consecutively for five times in the five GP races already contested this year, Mika Hakkinen narrowly set the second position of the start grid at his last lap time of the qualifying session. Michael Schumacher recorded the time for his first pole position of this season early in the 60 minutes, transforming the qualifying into an intense battle for pole position in the Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal. Despite high track temperatures which reached as high as 48 degrees, Bridgestone's Soft compound suits this track well.

Yoshihiko Ichikawa, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager:

"In today's heat we haven't seen any degradation with the Soft tyre. We were not too worried about this because in testing at Kyalami before the season we saw temperatures even higher than those we recorded here. The teams seem to be very pleased with the performance and durabiliuty of the Soft option, although it has shown a little understeer when the tyres are brand new. For this reason, several drivers actually did their qualifying on tyres that had already been scrubbed. A one- stop strategy will be possible for both the Soft and Medium compounds."

Ross Brawn, Technical Director, Ferrari Team:

"It is a big satisfaction to have the first pole position of the year. We saw how important it is to have good position on the grid at Barcelona, where our race was ruined by qualifying and a poor start. We hope to reverse that trend here. The car is working very well here, even in the heat. This is very encouraging for us, because last year the hot conditions did not suit us. This weekend, though, the tyres respond just as well on a hot track as they have done in cooler conditions. We don't have to make many changes to the car at all, in fact the only thing that is suffering in the heat is us. Tyre wear is not a consideration, either, in fact if we wanted to run the whole distance on one set, that would probably be possible."

Robin Gearing, Engineer, Stewart Grand Prix:

"Yesterday we made good progress with the car by making quite big changes in the setup through the day, then some more changes overnight, which have improved the car. When the track temperature started to rise this morning we were unsure about our pace because the times weren't coming down as would normally happen. But the times were consistent, which was encouraging. In his first couple of qualifying runs, Rubens got traffic. But he put it together really well on the third run and was expecting to get close to the McLarens on his final run, but there was a yellow flag at turn 1 which prevented any improvement. We know that we have a good setup for the race. The biggest problem here is brakes, so we will be doing some more work tonight on that side of the car in the hope of getting them to stay strong through the whole race. Tyre wear is not going to be a problem."

TEMPERATURES AIR TRACK WEATHER Morning 24