of the two McLaren cars. This formation was continued on the fifth row of the grid, which was occupied by Rubens Barrichello in the other Jordan and Mark Blundell in the other McLaren. Brundle qualified in 11th position, more than a second in front of Ligier teammate Panis in 13th; both drivers complained that their cars rode the bumps on the track badly. The two were split by Frentzen in the quicker of the two Sauber drivers, who set a best time 1.5 seconds faster than his own teammate, Jean-Christophe Boullion, in 16th. Ukyo Katayama was 14th quickest for the Tyrrell team, ahead of Pierluigi Martini's Minardi, the latter's best qualifying performance of the season. Behind Boullion, Papis set the 17th fastest time in his first Formula One qualifying session, split from teammate Taki Inoue by Luca Badoer in the second Minardi, who was unable to complete his allocated laps after spinning and breaking the car's gearbox. The times were completed by Diniz and Moreno in the Forti cars, who sandwiched Bertrand Gachot's Pacific car. Two drivers failed to set times: Mika Salo failed to stop his Tyrrell at the pit-lane weighbridge despite the presence of a red light—indicating that his car had been selected to be weighed—and the stewards excluded his times as a result. Andrea Montermini did not take part in the session at all due to a failure of his car's brake master cylinder; the underfunded Pacific team lacked the resources to bring a spare car to the event. Saturday free practice took place in mixed weather conditions: the session was initially dry, but was then hit by a rain shower which dampened it somewhat; the times were thus slower and more spread out down the field than the previous day. Schumacher set the fastest time of 1:31.390, and said that he believed that his car's handling was much improved compared with its performance on Friday. He was followed by Alesi, Coulthard, Herbert, Panis and Frentzen. Hill was left in 22nd position as a result of spinning off in the difficult conditions and then breaking his car's transmission as he attempted to restart. Alesi had a controversial session: he set a fast time under yellow flag conditions for Hill's spin. He later tangled with Gachot's Pacific and recovered to the pit entry at high speed, where he had to spin to avoid marshals who were pushing the