'First of all, I've got to thank the team for the strategy they chose,' said Trulli. 'They kept Heinz and I in the garage even though everyone else had gone onto the track, they said the weather was going to dry out. And it did. By waiting until the conditions were perfect, I was in a good position to put in fifth fastest time. I'm pretty happy because we knew the times were going to be close and, this time, everything went right for me and I was fastest behind the McLarens and Ferraris. The balance of the car continued to be as good as it has been all weekend so, overall, I'm very pleased with the way things have worked out.'

Frentzen had chosen to use the harder of the two types of Bridgestone tyre available and the difference in performance during qualifying turned out to be greater than expected.

'That was one of the problems I had this afternoon,' said Heinz-Harald. 'I lost more time with the harder tyre than I had expected; we didn't experience that during practice this morning and the hard tyre seemed the right way to go considering the difficulties I was having. Also, I completed my laps too early because I was expecting more rain - which didn't come - later in the session. That, in fact, was when the track was quicker. So, these two things together explain why I'm 15th on the grid.'
Mika Hakkinen demonstrated his return to form in a very convincing manner by qualifying almost four-tenths of a second faster than David Coulthard in the second McLaren. Michael Schumacher's struggle to make his Ferrari handle was underlined by a time which was slower than his team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, for only the second time this season.

Jordan Grand Prix