Japanese GP McLaren Saturday notes

JAPANESE GRAND PRIX 1998 - QUALIFYING

CHASSIS NUMBERS: Mika Hakkinen: MP4 - 13 / 04 MH - Spare: MP4 - 13 / 07 David Coulthard: MP4 - 13 / 03 DC - Spare: MP4 - 13 / 05

The West McLaren Mercedes team completed a highly competitive qualifying session for the final race of the Formula One season. Mika Hakkinen will make his twelfth front row start of the year in second place, having posted a fastest lap of 1:36.47. Whilst David Coulthard put in a quickest lap of 1:37.496 and will start from third.

MIKA HAKKINEN 'Naturally I am a little disappointed but being second is not such a big problem. Of course I would prefer to be on pole but it doesn't give me any more pressure not to be. My last lap was pretty quick until I went wide and I am annoyed with myself, especially as the conditions were ideal for the tyres and the car was handling really well.

DAVID COULTHARD 'I am happy to be third on the grid because I have continued to improve throughout the weekend and I am now significantly quicker than Irvine. I am loosing some time through the first sector but as I only managed one proper run in qualifying there is plenty of scope for improvement.'

RON DENNIS 'It is always nice to be on pole but we are very comfortable with our grid position, particularly as our lap times show we are well ahead of the opposition. This is probably the only race I have ever come to where coming second is as important as coming first.'

NORBERT HAUG 'A strong performance by Michael Schumacher but we are on target, with our cars on row one and two of the grid, ahead of Eddie Irvine. With this we have a better basis for the race than we had at the Nurburgring last month.'