French GP Saturday Minardi notes

FRENCH GRAND PRIX - 26th June 1999 QUALIFYING

MARC GENE' Chassis 04 19th 10 laps time: 1:46,324 "Today I drove for the very first time, since I am in Formula 1, under such weather conditions. Last year I only covered six laps in the rain on board a Minardi M198 during a test but today's weather conditions were really awful. Despite aquaplaning due to the very wet track, my car's set-up was good. Generally speaking I feel pretty satisfied with the time I scored. Sometimes I was afraid I could spin off but in the end I enjoyed this unusual qualifying session. I feel good also because I qualified, together with my teammate, behind both Arrows."

LUCA BADOER Chassis 01 20th 8 laps time: 1:46,784 "I'm a bit disappointed because I could have exploited this opportunity much better. I like driving in the rain and I generally push hard in such weather conditions. We didn't go out soon as hopefully the weather could change; but this turned out to be a disadvantage for us. When we decided to go out in the last ten minutes left, the situation was really precarious due to the pouring rain. I preferred not to take any risk but I could have done better."

GIANCARLO MINARDI: "Unfortunately we were not able to profit from these particular weather conditions in the best way. We checked the weather evolution from the satellite which was forecasting an improvement at the end of the qualifying session. We, therefore, preferred to wait but rain stopped only after the end of the session."