Hungarian GP McLaren Saturday notes

West McLaren Mercedes driver David Coulthard will start Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix from second position after setting a time of 1:14.860 during today's qualifying which took place in extremely hot weather conditions. David achieved his quickest time during his second run. Last year's Hungarian Grand Prix winner Mika Hakkinen qualified sixth with a time of 1:15.411 ? a time which he set at his first attempt.

DAVID COULTHARD
"After damaging my chassis yesterday, I was using a new one today. However I wouldn't have known unless the mechanics had told me how late they had to work last night. Often you can feel a slight difference when using a new chassis but the car this morning felt the same as yesterday and the guys in the team did a great job. I abandoned my first run when Frentzen came in the way and set my fastest time in the second, but was unable to improve after that. I went a bit wide in the third run and my final run was generally not as tidy as the others. I don't think we could've claimed pole today but I'm confident that we could have been closer to Michael's time. We have generally tended to be quicker in race trim this year so we will see what happens tomorrow. As the nature of the track is very similar to Monaco it's important to get a good start as its difficult to overtake."

MIKA HAKKINEN
"Unfortunately we were unable to get the car to handle the way we would have liked. I had to abandon my only 'decent' run when I ran wide after losing the back end. However the race here will be tough and both physically and technically very demanding so everything is possible. We now have to improve the car for tomorrow in the way we have often successfully done during this year."

RON DENNIS
"David's front row position is almost the best place from which to start the Hungarian Grand Prix. However whilst David's best sector times would close some of the gap, the reality is that we are not as competitive as we would like to be. Mika's qualifying result was due to a mixture of traffic and less than optimised car set-up."

NORBERT HAUG
"Hungary and Monaco are the two most difficult circuits on which to overtake therefore whilst David is understandably disappointed with the gap to pole he must take comfort from being on the front row. Mika's practice was somewhat disrupted which is reflected in his grid position."

-McLaren