as essential in balancing the team's budget. The decision led to Tyrrell leaving the team midway through the season. The 1998 season was another unsuccessful one for Rosset, and led to increasing criticism of his abilities. Failing to qualify at Monaco, he spun towards the end of the qualifying session, and embarrassingly beached his car on the kerb when he tried to spin the car round to the face in the right direction. When Murray Walker suggested that people were debating whether Rosset was F1 quality, co-commentator and ex-F1 driver Martin Brundle replied, "it's a fairly short debate, Murray". Rosset has countered the criticism against him, claiming that, for journalists, making a driver look stupid is more lucrative than discovering the truth. He blamed a worn clutch for the incident: "That's why it looks so bad... the clutch wasn't working." Even Rosset's own mechanics were critical of him: after he damaged his car in a collision with Jacques Villeneuve at Monaco and received a warning from the stewards, his mechanics switched the first and last letters of his surname on his paddock scooter to form the word "tosser". Rosset later said, "I never saw that. Maybe behind the scenes, the mechanics, they were saying that. I remember something like that... I don't doubt it." Despite an eighth-place finish at the next race in Canada, which was ultimately the team's best result of the season, Rosset was in danger of losing his seat to Danish driver Tom Kristensen. At a test at Magny-Cours, Rosset and Takagi posted almost equal times, with Kristensen around half a second slower, albeit with an older engine. Rosset said in 2019 that Kristensen drove the same car as he did, with only a change of seat and minor adjustments. Rosset went on to outqualify Takagi at the following race at the same circuit, the French Grand Prix. Rosset's problems included missing out on qualification for the Spanish Grand Prix by 0.06s, and an injury during practice for the German Grand Prix which prevented him from taking part in qualifying, while in Belgium he crashed into the carnage of the 14-car pile-up on the first lap after being unsighted by the heavy spray, and was unable to take the restart. A further failure to qualify at Tyrrell's final race in Japan, where he was hindered by a neck injury caused by a crash in practice, marked the