the faster Williams who bent a push-rod on his first run after clipping the kerb at the exit of Becketts and took over the spare car set up for Ralf Schumacher. Ralf Schumacher rounded out the top ten qualifiers and said he felt unlucky as his fastest lap was set on his second run and was held up by traffic when track conditions had improved. Panis recorded the eleventh fastest lap time and reported the balance of his car was good but had a problem with his traction control system which was quickly rectified by his engineers. Villeneuve had an engine problem on his first run and went into the spare BAR monocoque until his race car was fixed and was twelfth fastest. He was ahead of de la Rosa in the faster of the two Jaguars and did not report any problems. Alesi found the old version of his Prost's undertray gave him more consistent handling and recorded the 14th fastest lap. Irvine qualified in 15th position and had a suspension failure and switched to the spare Jaguar which was set-up for de la Rosa. Burti had a large amount of understeer which restricted him to 16th on the grid. Verstappen gradually improved his car throughout the session and secured 17th place; his teammate Bernoldi took the 20th position and had a throttle issue on his first run which affected his momentum and was held up by Verstappen on his final run. The two Arrows were separated by the Benettons of Jenson Button and Giancarlo Fisichella; Button was unable to record a faster lap time because he was held up by traffic and Fisichella complained of understeer and poor grip. Alonso secured 21st and completed the grid. His teammate Tarso Marques failed to set a lap within 107% of Michael Schumacher's pole time and was not allowed to start the race after an appeal by Minardi was rejected by the stewards. Qualifying classification Warm-up The drivers took to the track at 08:30 BST for a 30-minute warm-up session in dry and partly sunny weather conditions. The McLarens maintained their good form from qualifying; Coulthard had the fastest time of 1:22.994 set in the closing minutes of the session. Häkkinen finished the session with the third-fastest time and was fastest in the middle part of the session. Trulli was second fastest and his teammate Frentzen rounded out the top four