 The qualifying session was held on Saturday afternoon and lasted one @-@ hour between 13 : 00 to 14 : 00 CEST , each driver was allowed up to twelve timed laps , with their fastest lap used to determine their grid position . Cars were timed using a TAG Heuer timing system , which measured to an accuracy of one @-@ thousandth of a second . At the end of the session , the three fastest drivers had all set the same laptime , the first time this had happened in the history of the World Championship . Jacques Villeneuve was first to set a time of 1 : 21 @.@ 072 , fourteen minutes into the one hour session . A further fourteen minutes later , Michael Schumacher posted an identical time . With nine minutes of the session remaining , Heinz @-@ Harald Frentzen crossed the line , again with a time of 1 : 21 @.@ 072 . Under the regulations , in the event of drivers setting equal times in qualifying , the order in which the times were set is considered , with the first driver to set the time given precedence . Villeneuve was awarded pole position on the starting grid for the race , with Schumacher second and Frentzen third . Fourth place on the grid went to the reigning World Champion , Damon Hill , in his Arrows , with a time of 1 : 21 @.@ 130 , 0 @.@ 058 seconds behind the time of the leading three . Hill had been on course to get pole position but had to slow towards the end of the lap because of yellow flags due to an incident involving Ukyo Katayama 's Minardi . 
