Spanish GP Saturday McLaren notes

SPANISH GRAND PRIX - QUALIFYING

Chassis Numbers Mika Hakkinen MP4 - 14 /05 David Coulthard MP4 - 14 /04 T Car MP4 - 14 /02

Mika Hakkinen achieved his fifteenth career pole position and his fifth in a row this season with a time of 1:22.088. David was just 0.156 secs behind his team mate in third position. A close fought qualifying saw Mika taking pole close to the chequered flag, with David separating the second and fourth placed Ferraris.

MIKA HAKKINEN 'I think the reason that I am sitting on pole position is because the engineers did a great job to finally achieve the balance in the car that I wanted. David had been much quicker than I was this morning and that is one of the good things about having David as a team mate, we work together and because of this, we were able to find a set up which enabled me to take pole position today. It was a very challenging qualifying as indeed the whole season has been; the times are very close, the cars are very competitive and it will be an exciting race tomorrow.'

DAVID COULTHARD 'I was quickest on my second run, as on the last two runs I picked up some understeer. I had originally dialled this into the car as I had been experiencing oversteer in the first two runs, but we went too far and then we ran out of time to return to the original set up. But I am quite pleased to be starting on the clean side of the track and I am looking forward to the race.'

RON DENNIS 'Statistics aren't so important but it was nice for Mika to add another pole position to his previous total. That said it was not the smoothest of sessions for us as we did not extract the best from the cars. However, both the drivers and the team did a great job and considering the difficulties we encountered we are pleased with the result.'

NORBERT HAUG 'Five poles in a row for Mika is an excellent achievement. Pole today was hard fought and I am sure the team will find an even better set up for tomorrow.'