Formula 1

Japanese GP Bridgestone Friday Practice Report

Suzuka, October/29/1998 1998 JAPANESE GRAND PRIX - PRACTICE A SITUATION WHICH IS BETTER THAN IT APPEARS ... The duel between Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher for the 1998 world drivers' championship got off to a close start this morning, ...

Edited: May 8, 2001, 12:19 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Suzuka, October/29/1998

1998 JAPANESE GRAND PRIX - PRACTICE

A SITUATION WHICH IS BETTER THAN IT APPEARS ...

The duel between Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher for the 1998 world drivers' championship got off to a close start this morning, when Hakkinen narrowly outpaced his Ferrari rival in the first session of practice at the Suzuka circuit. The afternoon produced an apparently much less promising situation as Schumacher seized the initiative, leaving Hakkinen and his West-McLaren-Mercedes team mate David Coulthard in 5th and 6th places. However, it was made clear by Hakkinen's engineers that a small mistake on his final run had prejudiced what promised to be a much faster time. Well worthy of note was the excellent showing of Jos Verstappen, who took full advantage of his local knowledge to post 9th fastest time of the day for Stewart Grand Prix, ahead of the Benettons of Giancarlo Fisichella and Alexander Wurz.

Hirohide Hamashima, Technical Director, Bridgestone Motorsport: "Although this result doesn't look too good for McLaren and Bridgestone, we know that a mistake cost Mika what promised to be the fastest time in today's practice. David Coulthard is still struggling with the handling, so we will be looking for a solution overnight which will help him improve in qualifying. The temperatures today - 23 degrees air and 30 on the track - are very similar to those we experienced during final testing at Barcelona. That means everything is going to plan so far."

Steve Hallam, Chief engineer, West McLaren Mercedes: "Unfortunately Mika lost some time on his final run this afternoon and the lap times we see are not representative of the car's full potential. We have already covered a lot of laps and we believe we understand where we stand with the new Bridgestone tyres. We feel comfortable with the situation and look forward to consolidating our performance tomorrow."

TEMPERATURES        AIR        TRACK        TRACK CONDITIONS
Morning                25:-23:        31:-31:        Bright - dry
Afternoon        23:-30:        23:-28:        Bright - dry

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Japan GP Stewart-Ford Preview

Next article Japanese GP Stewart Qualifying Report

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Liam Lawson disqualified from F1 qualifying in Mexico – here's why

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

1 h

Liam Lawson disqualified from F1 qualifying in Mexico – here's why

Max Verstappen clears the air with Liam Lawson, but stays tight-lipped on Racing Bulls F1 seat

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

2 h

Max Verstappen clears the air with Liam Lawson, but stays tight-lipped on Racing Bulls F1 seat

"I'll bombard myself with melatonin": Kimi Antonelli admits to driving "tense" and "tired" on cusp of F1 title

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

3 h

"I'll bombard myself with melatonin": Kimi Antonelli admits to driving "tense" and "tired" on cusp of F1 title

Ryo Hirakawa could have "easily" made Q2 in F1 Mexico GP without late traffic

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

3 h

Ryo Hirakawa could have "easily" made Q2 in F1 Mexico GP without late traffic

Feature

Discover prime content

Why Isack Hadjar deserves a medal, not a warning, after paddock "incident"

Formula 1

Mexican GP

By Stuart Codling

Why Isack Hadjar deserves a medal, not a warning, after paddock "incident"

What we learned from Friday practice at the 2026 Mexico GP

Formula 1

Mexican GP

By Jake Boxall-Legge

What we learned from Friday practice at the 2026 Mexico GP

What’s the state of play at F1’s smallest team?

Formula 1

By Jake Boxall-Legge

What’s the state of play at F1’s smallest team?

Is history really repeating itself? What Christian Horner’s Adrian Newey claim says about Aston Martin and Red Bull

Formula 1

By Ronald Vording

Is history really repeating itself? What Christian Horner’s Adrian Newey claim says about Aston Martin and Red Bull

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts