Summary

It took a while for Mika Hakkinen to take the fastest time on the twisty Monaco circuit. Michael Schumacher seemed to have the right package, but ended fifth after a collision with the wall. Benetton have made good progress during the tests and Giancarlo Fisichella was able to clock the second fastest time followed by David Coulthard.

Notes

• A lot of drivers touched or crashed into the barriers today.
• R. Schumacher had an engine problem today.
• Flavio Briatore will get involved in Formula One again. His current company will change its name to Supertec Sports and will take care of the distribution of Mecachrome engines in 1999.
  • Weather during sessions: Partly Cloudy (21 Degrees C)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.   21. 22.

Hakkinen (McLaren-Mercedes) B Fisichella (Benetton-Playlife) B Coulthard (McLaren-Mercedes) B Frentzen (Winfield-Williams) G M. Schumacher (Ferrari) G Irvine (Ferrari) G Herbert (Sauber-Petronas) G Wurz (Benetton-Playlife) B Villeneuve (Winfield-Williams) G Trulli (Prost-Peugeot) B Diniz (Arrows) B Alesi (Sauber-Petronas) G Panis (Prost-Peugeot) B Salo (Arrows) B Magnussen (Stewart-Ford) B Barrichello (Stewart-Ford) B Hill (Jordan-Mugen) G Rosset (Tyrrell-Ford)B Takagi (Tyrrell-Ford) G R. Schumacher (Jordan-Mugen) G 107% rule Tuero (Minardi-Ford) B Nakano (Minardi-Ford) B B: Bridgestone G: Goodyear

1m 21.937s 1m 22.205s 1m 22.757s 1m 23.656s 1m 23.685s 1m 23.765s 1m 23.914s 1m 23.946s 1m 24.081s 1m 24.191s 1m 24.735s 1m 24.901s 1m 25.119s 1m 25.400s 1m 25.836s 1m 25.863s 1m 25.947s 1m 26.625s 1m 26.761s 1m 27.160s 1m 27.673s 1m 27.844s 1m 28.652s

Quotes

• M. Schumacher: "We are still slightly behind the McLarens, but the gap is not too big and this is what we had expected here. As for the accident, I was trying too hard and lost control. I think we can improve the car a little bit for qualifying. I am happy that the new Goodyear tyres are a clear improvement and are contributing to our competitiveness."

• Herbert: "At one stage we tried similar settings to 1997 but they did not prove fruitful with the car in its narrow-track specifications. We reverted to our normal settings and improved it with each run, though it still has too much understeer. I lost a bit of time this morning with a cut tyre, but this afternoon the car was good enough for seventh place on new tyres."

• Hill: "This morning I crashed, damaging my nose cone and front wing and losing most of the session. Then this afternoon I got a couple of runs in and then the third gear stripped and seized the gear box. I slowed down and changed into second gear coming into the chicane but then the car locked up and stopped. So that meant I lost most of the afternoon session as well! Of course I have done plenty of running here before but it meant that as far as today's session went, we were playing 'catch-up'. It is difficult to put your finger on exactly why we were not fast enough; I think it is a combination of lack of traction and lack of time to work on set up. I found that the grooved tyres made the cars more tricky round this circuit as they made it tougher to get control of the car."

• R. Schumacher: "I did not have a great day today. My engine blew at Sainte Devote quite early on into the session, which meant I was not able to do as much running as we needed to do. The narrow track car around this circuit did not feel much different from last year's car."