Canadian GP Saturday McLaren notes

Chassis Numbers: Mika Hakkinen MP4-14/05 David Coulthard MP4-14/06 T.Car MP4-14/02

The West McLaren Mercedes team had another intense qualifying session with Mika Hakkinen missing his sixth pole position of the season by just twenty nine thousandths of a second. He did however claim second place on the grid with a fastest lap of 1.19:327. David Coulthard will start from fourth position, having put in a quickest lap of 1.19:729.

MIKA HAKKINEN 'We have worked very hard to get the right race set up and now I feel confident with the car. Everyone has done a really good job, especially as the mechanics had to do a lot of work on the car after my shunt at the end of practice this morning. But now I feel quite optimistic and happy that the car is better than it has been all weekend and that it will be good for the race. '

DAVID COULTHARD 'Being slower this afternoon than I was this morning is a little confusing. I couldn't attack the corners with the same confidence during qualifying as I did in practice so I will be looking at the data with my engineers to see if we can establish the problem and how we can improve the handling for tomorrow's race.'

RON DENNIS 'Both drivers did a great job but the twenty nine thousandths of a second, which was the difference between Mika being second on the grid or claiming his sixth consecutive pole, will be a number that we will remember for a while. Both David and Mika have a good race set up and so it should be an interesting Sunday.'

MARIO ILLIEN 'We did not encounter any problems with the engine performance today. So we hope this continues and we expect a close battle tomorrow.'