rubber. Hill, concerned about starting from the dirty side of the track (the side of the track that is opposite to the racing line), had only two sets of brand new tyres for the race. Berger took fourth despite going off into the gravel late in the second part of qualifying. Berger's teammate Alesi was fifth, with Irvine completing the top six for his best qualifying position of the season. Rookie Magnussen qualified 12th, only two places behind teammate Blundell, after not making a mistake in either of the two sessions. Returning drivers Suzuki, Katayama, Morbidelli and Gachot qualified 13th, 17th, 19th and 24th respectively, with the grid covered by 7.392 seconds. Qualifying classification Warm-up The drivers took to the track at 09:30 JST (GMT +9) for a 30-minute warm-up session. Both Williams cars maintained their good performance from qualifying; Coulthard had the fastest time of 1:16.831. Hill was third in the other Williams car; Boullion split them in the Sauber for second position. Olivier Panis completed the top four in a Ligier car, eight-tenths of a second behind Hill. Hill drove the spare Williams car along the inside of the start–finish straight in an effort to clean up his grid position on the dusty side of the track. Schumacher finished the session in eighth, despite going off the track, damaging his race car in the process. Race The conditions for the race were dry with the air temperature . The remote and inaccessible nature of the circuit and the fact that the took place just one week later resulted in a meagre race-day crowd of only 15,000 spectators. The race started at 14:00 JST. Coulthard, from pole position on the grid, held onto the lead into the first corner. Hill, who started alongside Coulthard, had a bad start. Schumacher attempted to go around the outside of Hill at the first corner, but Hill held Schumacher off. Both drivers ran off the racing line in the process, allowing Alesi through into second place. At the end of lap one, Coulthard led Alesi by 2.8 seconds, with Hill a further three-tenths back. Berger was fourth, with Schumacher demoted to fifth. Bertrand Gachot in the Pacific became the first person to retire from the race with a gearbox problem on lap two. He was followed by Suzuki and Boullion, who both spun off the track and were unable to continue. Boullion blamed