First of all our apologies that our ...

Published on 28 June 1997 by Verstappen Info Page

First of all our apologies that our site has been down for some time.
Jos Verstappen qualified 18th quickest for the French Grand Prix. His time was three tenths of a second quicker than teammate Mika Salo who qualified just behind him. Doing his third run Jos had to park his car with twenty minutes of practice to go because of an engine blow- up. He had another go in the sparecar but unfortunetely to no avail.
The main problem for the Tyrrell drivers was that they struggled to find grip when the temperature increased. Jos therefore set his quickest lap, a 1m16.941s on his second flying lap.

Because of the engine problems of Verstappen on Friday and Saturday the Tyrrell team brought in some old Cosworth ED4 engines. These examples might be used in tomorrows race to ensure reliability.

The pole position for tomorrow's race went to Micheal Schumacher in the Ferrari. He set a time of 1m14.548s. Second place on the grid is for Williams driver Heinz Harald Frentzen and to complete the German success: Ralf Schumacher will start from third place tomorrow.

What was striking in the qualifying session was the performance of Jarno Trulli who set a 6th time in the Prost. It is only the 8th Grand Prix for the young Italian and his first one for Prost. Three years ago Trulli was racing in nothing but karts.

In the first free practice session on Saturday Jos set a 14th time which was three thousanths of a second slower than Mika Salo. Jacques Villeneuve was quickest in both of the sessions. In the second morning session Jos set a 15th time and was a tenth of a second quicker than Salo. As said Villeneuve was the fastest man this morning but he also had a big off which forced him to drive the spare-car in the first part of qualifying.

For a complete overview of all the practice times please refer to our results page.