The last episode of this year's World ...

Published on 31 October 1998 by Verstappen Info Page

The last episode of this year's World Championship tomorrow in Japan promises to be very exciting. During qualifying Michael Schumacher set the best time today (1:36.293) and will start from pole-position tomorrow. Mika Hakkinen is close by him with the second time (1:36.471). More than a second behind him are David Coulthard (1:37.496) and Eddie Irvine (1:38.197). Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jacques Villeneuve complete the top 6.

After a promising ninth place yesterday Jos Verstappen's 19th qualifying position today was somewhat disappointing. Team mate Rubens Barrichello did somewhat better with a 16th place. Jos about today: "It was a difficult qualifying session. The balance of the car changed since this morning's practice so we couldn't find the ideal set-up. I went on the grass during my second run and decided to abandon the lap. My final time was quicker than the ones I did earlier today but the improvement was not enough. We are going to look at the data overnight to see how we can improve the balance of the car tomorrow."

Paul Stewart had also hoped for more today. He indicated that the team will run a significant set-up change in tomorrow morning's warm-up. After the warm-up the team will make a decision which set-up will be used in the race. The new Ford Zetec V10 Series 6 engine performed trouble-free this weekend. Martin Whitaker, European director of Motorsport at Ford: "We have had a trouble-free Friday and Saturday with the Series 6 engines and hope this will continue tomorrow when the latest specification of the engine will be making its race debut."

For a complete overview you can take a look at our season page.