Japanese GP Bridgestone Saturday Notes

Suzuka, October/31/1998

1998 JAPANESE GRAND PRIX - QUALIFYING

The expectations grow for tomorrow!

Hirohide Hamashima, Technical Director, Bridgestone Motorsport: "Although we did not get the pole position here, the gap between Michael and Mika is very small. Today, Mika impressed me once again by his aggressive way of driving and if we compare today's result to Luxembourg's qualifying we can consider we got a better result here. Today's circuit conditions are much better than yesterday and consequently the lap time is amazingly almost the same as last year. Mika and Michael 's best lap times from last year show Mika's improvement is also bigger than Michael's on this track. The last information we had regarding the weather forecast for the race is that tomorrow it will probably be cooler and cloudy.

Steve Hallam, Chief engineer, West McLaren Mercedes: "It was another very exciting session and we will not be able to know how fast Mika could have done on his last lap because he slipped off the track just before the bridge. We are on the front row of the grid with David in third place splitting the two Ferraris. More than ever, we are looking forward to tomorrow. I do appreciate that all around the circuit there are a lot of banners flying from the grandstand. Some of them belong to the Finnish fans in the crowd, but many of them are being waved by members of the Bridgestone company who are here to support our efforts."

Ron Dennis, Manager Director West McLaren Mercedes: "It was an interesting qualifying session and we had to perform to force Michael onto the soft option. The Bridgestone's tyres durability here seems to be very good what give us any race strategy option available for us.

TEMPERATURES        AIR        TRACK        TRACK CONDITIONS
Morning                20:-23:        23:-30:        Over cast -Damp to dry
Afternoon        23:-27:        30:-31: Bright - dry