either session counted towards his final grid position. Each driver was limited to twelve laps per qualifying session. Schumacher set the pace in Friday free practice, which took place in dry and cloudy weather conditions, with a time of 1:29.238. Hill was less than four hundredths of a second behind, ahead of Alesi, Coulthard, Herbert and Berger; the drivers from the top three teams in the Constructors' Championship thus filled the top six positions. Despite his fastest time, Schumacher was unhappy with the handling of his Benetton, reporting more understeer than had been present in pre-event testing at the circuit. Weather conditions for Friday qualifying were dry and sunny, albeit blustery, which meant that drivers had to cope with strong crosswinds in the circuit's many high-speed corners. The session was marked by an intense fight for pole position between championship protagonists Schumacher and Hill, which was watched by a crowd of 37,000 spectators. Schumacher initially set the pace with a time of 1:29.151, which he later improved to 1:28.387. Hill initially struggled to match his rival's time in the final, twistier sector of the lap, but made a set-up change and took provisional pole with a time of 1:28.124 in the final ten minutes. Schumacher—who had increased the level of downforce on his car to compensate for the understeer, only to find that the reduction in straightline speed was too great—was demoted to second position, but was confident that he and the team could improve the car's handling for Saturday's session. Coulthard was more than 0.8 seconds slower than Hill in third place, and blamed the strong crosswinds for making his car feel very unstable at the rear end. Berger and Alesi set the fourth and sixth fastest times respectively for Ferrari, both drivers disadvantaged by a lack of straightline speed compared to the Renault-powered Williams and Benetton cars, and the fact that the Italian team was not allowed to take part in pre-event testing at the circuit as per the FIA's regulations. Team principal Jean Todt, however, described lack of testing as "a feeble excuse" for the team's loss of form compared with earlier races in the season. Herbert separated the Ferrari drivers in the second Benetton, also complaining of rear-end stability problems with his car. Eddie Irvine set the seventh quickest time in his Jordan despite suffering a recurring brake balance problem, ahead of Häkkinen in the faster