107% of the quickest lap to qualify for the race. Mika Häkkinen took pole position by three-tenths from teammate David Coulthard, after the pair locked out a McLaren front row to start the season. Michael Schumacher was disappointed with third after a spin by Coulthard had caused a red flag forcing him to abandon his final attempt. Coulthard said that it "was not the intention" for him to disrupt Schumacher on his final flying lap. The top three qualifying places were identical to what they had been in the previous two years. Schumacher's new Ferrari teammate, Rubens Barrichello, qualified fourth, with the Jordans of Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jarno Trulli behind him on the third row. Eddie Irvine qualified seventh for Jaguar, with Jacques Villeneuve, Giancarlo Fisichella and Mika Salo completing the top ten. Ralf Schumacher was eleventh for the Williams-BMW, with rookie teammate Jenson Button qualifying 21st for his first race, setting a lap time 1.6 seconds slower. Behind Button was another rookie, Gastón Mazzacane, and in front was Jaguar's Johnny Herbert. Button later described his qualifying session by saying "It can't get worse than this". Qualifying classification Warm-up In Sunday morning's half an hour warm-up session, Barrichello paced the field with a time of 1 minute and 31.225 seconds. He was 1.573 seconds faster than Button in second place who had a small oil leak and fire in the pit lane. The two McLarens were third and fourth, with Häkkinen ahead of Coulthard. Verstappen was fifth and Fisichella sixth. Jean Alesi, Michael Schumacher, de la Rosa and Salo completed the top ten going into the race. Race A total of 124,300 people attended the race. 21 of the 22 cars started on the grid, with Prost driver Alesi the only car to start from the pit lane. Häkkinen converted his pole position from qualifying to lead into the first corner at the start of the race. Coulthard and Schumacher remained in second and third place respectively, but Barrichello was overtaken by Frentzen into turn one, dropping him down to fifth place. Trulli rounded out the top six places at the end of lap 1. At the back of the field, Button gained six positions, moving from 21st to 15th position. This was partially due to a collision between Minardi driver Marc Gené and rookie Heidfeld, which left Gené last in the order as he had to pit for repairs.