Summary

Jean Alesi took the second pole of his career with a very small margin over Heinz-Harald Frentzen, second, and Giancarlo Fisichella third.

Notes

• Trulli spins off and continues in the T-car.
• Salo has gone through the gravel and continues in the T-car.
• Katayama spins off due to a problem with his brakes.
• M. Schumacher runs out of fuel on his lap towards the pits.
  • Weather during session: Sunny, dry (24 °C)

			Qualifying
		1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.	Alesi (Benetton-Renault) G Frentzen (Williams-Renault) G Fisichella (Jordan-Peugeot) G Villeneuve (Williams-Renault) G Hakkinen (McLaren-Mercedes) G Coulthard (McLaren-Mercedes) G Berger (Benetton-Renault) G R. Schumacher (Jordan-Peugeot) G M. Schumacher (Ferrari) G Irvine (Ferrari) G Barrichello (Stewart-Ford) B Herbert (Sauber-Petronas) G Magnussen (Stewart-Ford) B Hill (Arrows-Yamaha) B Nakano (Prost-Mugen) B Trulli (Prost-Mugen) B Diniz (Arrows-Yamaha) B Morbidelli (Sauber-Petronas) G Salo (Tyrrell-Ford) G Verstappen (Tyrrell-Ford) G Katayama (Minardi-Hart) B Marques (Minardi-Hart) B 107% rule B: Bridgestone G: Goodyear	1m 22.990s 1m 23.042s 1m 23.066s 1m 23.231s 1m 23.340s 1m 23.347s 1m 23.443s 1m 23.603s 1m 23.624s 1m 23.891s 1m 24.177s 1m 24.242s 1m 24.394s 1m 24.482s 1m 24.553s 1m 24.567s 1m 24.639s 1m 24.735s 1m 25.693s 1m 25.645s 1m 26.655s 1m 27.677s 1m 28.799s

The Quotes

• M. Schumacher: "Naturally I am disappointed with today's qualifying when I just could not do better. I think the problem is that the moment the track temperature goes up, our tyres overheat, so they do not work properly and they lose grip. I said last week in testing that it would be difficult for us to get a good grid position at Monza. With so many competitive cars on the grid, a few tenths of a second costs you a lot of places on the grid. We have to accept that, but tomorrow I will do my best to make the most of the situation."

• Verstappen: "What can I say? I think we got as much out of the car as possible and it was well balanced. We are good in the corners but obviously the car lacks speed down the straight and that shows in the grid positions for tomorrow's race."

• Salo: "On the first flying lap of my second run I lost the back of the car under braking and ran wide through the gravel. There were only 20 minutes remaining and there were quite a lot of stones in the car so I decided to do my last run in the spare car. It also means that we will not have to go out in the spare car in tomorrow's warm-up."

• Alesi: "This is a beautiful moment for me, another pole position here at Monza where I had my last three years ago. I have had a very good weekend so far, everything has gone as perfectly as I could have hoped and it has followed on from our good test here last week. It is a wonderful feeling. The crowd has been very special. I was following them from my car and I could see they were very happy for me. I love to come to Monza. I have a special relationship with this circuit, this place. My passport is French, of course, but my father and my mother are Italian. So, I speak French, but I have Italian blood. I am looking forward very much to the race."

• Berger: "I did not have a bad qualifying. I tried to push hard from the beginning of the session, not managing to go quicker. On my last run, I could have been one or two tenths faster, but in the Ascari chicane I came in too fast, lost the car a little bit and that cost me some time. My car is good but not perfect and I just could not match Jean's lap time."

• Irvine: "My only problem with the car was understeer, which got worse with every run. We tried to cure it by stiffening the rear of the car, but it did not help. All the same I am pleased and surprised with my best lap, because I did not think I could do that time. As usual we will be better in the race than in qualifying, where we were not competitive. In the race we will have to count on our reliability and our consistent performance."