in place of Délétraz, but he was not granted an FIA Super Licence and so Gachot retook the seat. Similarly, the Forti team's plans to replace Roberto Moreno with Hideki Noda came to nought for the same reason, even though Noda had started three Grands Prix for the Larrousse team the previous year. Practice and qualifying Two practice sessions were held before the race; the first was held on Friday morning and the second on Saturday morning. Both sessions lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes with weather conditions dry throughout. Schumacher set the fastest time in the first session, posting a lap of 1:16.057, three-tenths of a second quicker than Hill and Coulthard, in second and third places respectively. The Ferrari cars were fourth and fifth fastest; Gerhard Berger ahead of Jean Alesi, with McLaren driver Mark Blundell rounding out the top six. Coulthard lapped faster than Schumacher in the second practice session with a time of 1:15.730. Hill was second in the Williams, three-tenths of a second behind Coulthard. Eddie Irvine in the Jordan car was fourth, seven-tenths behind Coulthard. He was split by the Ferrari cars who were third and fifth; Alesi in front of Berger. The Benetton cars were sixth and seventh; Schumacher in front of Herbert. Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jean-Christophe Boullion were eighth and tenth in the Sauber cars, with Rubens Barrichello ninth in the Jordan, two seconds off the pace. The qualifying session was split into two one-hour sessions; the first was held on Friday afternoon with the second held on Saturday afternoon. The fastest time from either sessions counted towards their final grid position. Coulthard clinched his fourth consecutive pole position, in his Williams, with a time of 1:14.013. He was joined on the front row by teammate Hill, who was two-tenths of a second behind. Schumacher was third in the Benetton, edging closer to the Williams drivers throughout both days of qualifying by steadily reducing the downforce on his car. His last run, right at the end of the second session, pressured Coulthard into leaving the pit lane to cover the German. The pole position man thus used an additional set of slick tyres, meaning that out of the allocation of seven sets of slick tyres as set out by the FIA, he had only two sets of brand-new rubber for the race, whereas Schumacher had the advantage of three sets of new