[Note that this report corrects some inaccurate information that was]
[posted in the preliminary qualifying report.                       ]

Phillip Adams was first out for a dry session at Estoril.  
Temperatures were about 18 degrees.  He is driving the 109
with the old Mugen-Honda engine.  His second flying lap was
a full 3 seconds faster than his first, at which point Mika
Hakkinen came out onto the circuit.  He moved into first place
on his first flying lap, taking 5.33 seconds of Adams' time.
Barrichello and Gachot also appeared on the circuit, with
Hakkinen getting caught behind Gachot at the end of what had
been a fast lap up to that point.  Hakkinen decided not to
waste another lap and went into the pits.

Barrichello had been 4th fastest in the morning, behind
Coulthard, Hill and Katayama, after his first flying lap
he was 2nd behind Hakkinen and on the next lap he took
.167 seconds off Hakkinen's time to take provisional pole,
where he stayed until almost half way through the session.

Herbert came out at this point, and very disappointingly
span before completing a flying lap, stalled the engine,
and tried to get it going again while rolling downhill in
the opposite direction to the traffic.  He failed and was 
pushed off the track by the marshals.  So we never got to
see how the new engine was going to do here.

Morbidelli came out next and put himself into 3rd, then
Alesi, who was .185 off Barrichello's pace at the first
intermediate, .613 at the 2nd and only .260 off Barrichello's
time at the end of the lap, which put him into 3rd.

Berger was out next, along with Irvine who moved into 4th,
and then Brundle who took 4th from Irvine.  At 20 minutes
into the session, Berger took 2nd, being just .095 behind
Barrichello, who was back in the pits.

Barrichello came out for his second set of flying laps at
this point.  Lehto, Fittipaldi and Frentzen also appeared,
with Lehto moving into 6th.  Hill made his first appearence
25 minutes into the session, and was caught behind Fittipaldi
on his first flying lap to end up .750 behind Barrichello.
On his next flying lap Hill was stuck behind Katayama, and so
backed off.  Katayama moved into 16th and then up to 14th,
2.2 seconds off Barrichello's time.  Barrichello returned to
the pits having made no improvement on his time.

Hill now went fastest, taking .532 off Barrichello's time to
do a 1:21.287.  Coulthard came out of the pits; and on Hill's
next lap he improved by a further .334.  It was now half way
into the session and the top positions were as follows:

1. Hill  2. Barrichello  3. Berger  4. Hakkinen  5. Alesi
6. Brundle  7. Lehto  8. Verstappen  9. Frentzen  10. Fittipaldi
11. Blundell  12. Irvine  13. De Cesaris  14. Katayama  
15. Morbidelli

However, there were now a number of fast cars on the track,
and first Coulthard, then Alesi, then Coulthard again took
second place, demoting the session's early leader, Barrichello
down to 4th.  The Breger came out and threw the car around the
track, sliding all over the place to take away provisional
pole by .345, being the second man to break into the 1:20s.

Irvine came out again, Alesi and Berger trundled into the pits
in tandem and Hakkinen came out and moved up to 5th.  He was
then held up on the last corner by Brabham and went into the
pits.

Adams then spun his Lotus into the gravel (he was 23rd at the
time) ending Herbert's chances of going out in the other car
to at least record a time for the session.  Gachot's engine
then blew up somewhere near the end of the pit straight, and
he parked it on the edge of the track on the outside of a
corner.  Despite being in a dangerous position, and the
marshals having to take their lives in their hands to push
it away (they kept having to run away from it as another car
would come hurtling around the corner) the session was not
stopped.

At this point, we discovered that Pedro Lamy had made an
appearence in the paddock and was walking unaided and looking
forward to getting back into a car.  He looked a lot fitter
than Wendlinger, but then again, we didn't see him walking.
Anyway, good to see him looking fit and healthy, and lets
hope he can drive again soon.

There were now 10 minutes of the session remaining.  Berger
came out, and was still sliding his car everywhere (great to
watch) but made no improvement over his provisional pole time.
Hill also appeared, and improved his time, but not his position,
so he was still provisionally second.  On the next lap Berger
was taking it easy, and moved over at a difficult point in the
track to let Hill past.  Shortly thereafter Hill lost it and
span.  He kept the engine running, and elected not to go back
into the pits for a fresh set of tires, despite having been
in the gravel.

At this point there was the customary huge number of people
on the track for the closing minutes.  Brundle improved to 5th,
Martini's engine blew up, and Irvine found himself in 17th,
with Barrichello in 7th.  Coulthard improved his time, but
remained in thrid place.  Incidentally, there was a problem
with Irvine's engine this morning, and so he was not qualifying
using his race engine today.  He should have it back tomorrow.
Apparently this engine was short on high-end power.

At this point, with only a few minutes of the session left,
Hill was on his last flying lap, when he was approaching
Irvine.  Irvine went wide onto the grass, Hill went past,
Irvine lost it and ended up going backwards into the side
of Hill (who was braking for a corner) with the rear of
his Jordan hitting the side-pod of the Williams, just in
front of the left rear.  The Jordan wobbled a bit and the
Williams took off into the air and somersaulted (sideways)
to end up upside-down in the gravel bed.  Hill climed out
unharmed and the session was red-flagged with only 3:29
minutes to go.

When the session was restarted, Hakkinen moved up into 4th.

The two non-qualifiers were (tragically) Herbert, with no
time, and Belmondo who was a massive 12 seconds off the
pace.  Gachot was 26th, 7 seconds off the pace.

The other thing of note is that only .001 separated the
two Benetton drivers.

At the end of the session the order was as follows:
Berger, Hill, Coulthard, Hakkinen, Alesi, Katayama, Brundle,
Barrichello, Blundell, Lehto, Verstrappen, Fittipaldi,
Frentzen, DeCesaris, Morbidelli, Martini, Alboretto, Irvine,
Panis, Comas, Dalmas, Brabham
(I missed 23, 24 and 25 !)

-- 
Christine.                                chogan@indigo.ccsem.infn.it
chogan@maths.tcd.ie                             cjhogan@dsg.cs.tcd.ie

If it makes goo on the windscreen, we'll call it a bug. -- Larry Wall