Hungarian GP Saturday Tyrrell notes

HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX QUALIFYING [15.08.98] GOOD DAYS AND BAD DAYS

HUNGARORING, BUDAPEST, HUNGARY, August 15, 1998 -- It was once again a case of distinctly mixed fortunes for Tyrrell drivers Toranosuke Takagi and Ricardo Rosset at the conclusion of qualifying for tomorrow's Hungarian Grand Prix. By the end of the one-hour session, Takagi had secured 18th place on the grid, while Rosset was unable to set a time within 7 per cent of pole-position winner, Mika Hakkinen, and therefore will not start the race. Both drivers ran on Goodyear's Option tyre.

TORANOSUKE TAKAGI (No 21) Qualifying position: 18th Best lap: 1:20.354 "This was a difficult qualifying session. We lost valuable set-up time in the morning after I went off the track. I felt then that I should be able to make a one-second improvement to my lap time. When qualifying began this afternoon, all the teams waited to see what everybody else was going to do, and then there was a great rush of cars onto the track. That meant it was often difficult to get a clear lap. I didn't get the most out of the tyres on my first two runs, but then we made some small adjustments to the chassis, and on my last set of tyres, I found that extra second. There's no doubt the car is fast enough -- I recorded the quickest time through the sector three speed trap -- and we made good progress at the recent Silverstone test finding additional downforce, but we need still more. I know we are lower on the grid than we should be, but we have made progress."

RICARDO ROSSET (No 20) Qualifying position: DNQ Best lap: 1:23.140 "Once again, I am very disappointed. I just couldn't get the car set up to my liking here at the Hungaroring so that it would handle over the bumps at several key places on the circuit. I improved my time considerably on the last run, but it just wasn't enough to make the cut after Hakkinen dipped below the 1 min 17sec barrier on his final run."

DR HARVEY POSTLETHWAITE, Managing Director, Tyrrell "The Hungaroring is a unique track requiring a very special technique gained only by the experience of racing here over several years. This is exacerbated, of course, by the fact that testing is not permitted. Our drivers learned that lesson today and, despite steady improvements throughout qualifying, they were frustrated not to have produced a better result. Oddly, the circuit has a history of producing races with a high incidence of overtaking and tomorrow's race could yet prove interesting."