as well as the second chicane. Michael Schumacher achieved his third pole position of the season, and the 26th of his career, with a time of 1:18.439 set on his final lap. He was joined on the front row of the grid by Coulthard who qualified 0.098 seconds slower than Michael Schumacher's lap having duelled the latter for grid position throughout the session. Barrichello qualified third after encountering traffic and a stoppage to qualifying. Häkkinen encountered traffic during his qualifying runs and came fourth. Frentzen, fifth, dealt with heavy gusts at the L'Epingle hairpin where he found it difficult to find his braking spot. Villeneuve was sixth after locking his front tyres at the first chicane during his first full speed lap. His teammate Zonta was eighth. Trulli in seventh lacked grip in his tyres. Pedro de la Rosa in an Arrows car and Fisichella (driving with excess understeer and lack of traction) were ninth and tenth. Herbert failed to qualify in the top ten by two hundredths of a second though he said that he was happy with his car. Ralf Schumacher set the 12th quickest lap despite his Williams lacking mechanical grip. He was ahead of Verstappen who damaged his front suspension at turn four, (a part of the circuit without a run-off area) which caused a five-minute temporary suspension to qualifying after 40 minutes. Drivers went into the pit lane and remained there until marshals cleaned the circuit and put Verstappen's car onto a flatbed truck. The resultant damage meant Verstappen drove his team's spare monocoque. Wurz, in the second Benetton, lost time when he caught the aftermath of Verstappen's collision and was 14th fastest. Salo, 15th, had his rear wheel lock on downshifts. Irvine's slower Jaguar was behind him. Alesi qualified his Prost car 17th despite an engine failure. He was ahead of Button in 18th after Button's engine cut out at maximum revolutions per minute due to fuel-pick up fault on his final two (his third and fourth) runs. Diniz was 19th. The Williams FW22's poor performance was exacerbated by the slow corners of the circuit since it performed better on tracks with faster turns and both Ralf Schumacher and Button had car setup difficulties. Gené took 20th in the faster Minardi and his teammate Gastón Mazzacane completed the starting order in 22nd after facing the possibility of transgressing the 107 per cent rule for