Forum Discussion
Eddie Irvine noted the fastest time during the first session, of the first race weekend. The driver from Northern Ireland was almost .35s faster than David Coulthard and nearly .4s quicker that team mate Michael Schumacher. Defending world champion Mika Häkkinen came in 5th at .781s.
Fastest rookie of the day was Pedro De La Rosa in 16th at almost 2.2s of the leader. Former champions Damon Hill (14th) and Jacques Villeneuve (15th) were clearly struggling, as was F1-comeback kid Alessandro Zanardi (19th). Rookies Daniel Marzec (20th) and Ricardo Zonta (21st) were able to stay ahead of Marc Gené.
Marzec caused a red flag after 26 minutes, when he lost control of his Minardi coming out of turn 14. "Up to that point, I was in 14th-15th position. Under normal circumstances we are fighting at the back with Arrows and BAR it seems, so anything in the top 16 is a win for us. But I was pushing to hard and lost control. I'm sorry to give the team a lot more work than necessary ahead of qualifying."