French GP Saturday McLaren notes

FRENCH GRAND PRIX - QUALIFYING

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

This afternoon's atrocious weather conditions eased during the initial part of qualifying, only to be followed by a heavy and continuous downpour which turned qualifying into a lottery as the field struggled with spray and standing water on the track. In the worst conditions David Coulthard did a superb job to claim fourth place on the grid with a fastest lap of 1:40.403, whilst Mika struggled with the conditions and will start the race from fourteenth position having placed a 1:44.368.

MIKA HAKKINEN 'Well, it is impossible to make excuses because the weather conditions were the same for everybody. It just felt as though the yellow flags were worse for me! I was not able to feel confident in the car and that is why I have qualified in fourteenth position. But then again you have to be positive and optimistic for the race tomorrow - after all that is when you score the points.

DAVID COULTHARD 'Given the conditions in which we ran I am happy with my lap times. Clearly running at the beginning of the session was the wise thing to do, but even though we missed that window and, considering the weather, I am delighted to be starting the race from the second row of the grid.'

RON DENNIS 'With the benefit of hindsight it would have been better to have gone out in the early part of the session. But our job is to cover the competition which David did exceptionally well. Mika's final run however, was disrupted by multiple yellow flags as a result of most of the field taking to the greener parts of the Magny Cours circuit.'

NORBERT HAUG 'Looking back on practice we obviously got the timing wrong but David still did a great job under the most difficult conditions. One Ferrari is behind him and the other is behind Mika which is at least a positive outcome from this qualifying. Congratulations to Rubens Barichello and the Stewart Ford team who predicted it correctly today.'