It was a very wet second qualifying session in Suzuka.  After a
dry morning session in which Nigel Mansell was fastest, beating 
Prost's pole position time from last year, the rain started
pouring down.  It was still raining when the session got under
way.  The current forecast is for storms on Sunday, with a 70%
chance of the race being run in the wet.

First out on the track was Comas, who was alone for the first 7
or 8 minutes.  He was lapping in the 2:06 region.  Mansell and
Fittipaldi were next out.  The lack of traction was very obvious
when Mansell was leaving the pit lane, with the car sliding all
over the place despite the slow acceleration.  Comas completed
7 laps and went back to the pits.

Comparing times to yesterday's provisional pole time, Mansell was
23 seconds off Schumacher's time at the second split, and +28.79
seconds off at the end of the lap.  It was reasonably obvious that
the track wouldn't dry eneough for anyone to improve their times,
even if it did stop raining.

Morbidelli and Hill came out at the same time, as Mansell went
back in.  It was now raining even more heavily.  Schumacher and
Hakkinen both went out on the track at this time so that we could
compare the times of Hill and Schumacher, since they would be 
driving in the same conditions.

Hill completed his first flying lap in 2:09.173 as one of the 
Simteks left the pits, but stayed over to the side to let Hill
past for his next lap.  Schumacher completed his first flying
lap in a time of 2:01.692, 6 or 7 seconds quicker then anyone else
on the track at the same time.

Zanardi and Katayama came out, with 30 minutes left in the session.
Schumacher put in a 1:58.911, with Hakkinen his closest rival 5
seconds slower.  Hill returned to the pits, with his best time
1.5 seconds slower than Mansell's, but arguably clocked up in
worse conditions.

Lehto was the first spinner of the session, putting his Sauber 
into the gravel.  Irvine went out, but came straight back in without
completing a flying lap.  Mansell then went out for a second run
and clocked up a 2:01.135, as Alesi came out.  Frentzen was also on
the track at this time, and he clocked up a 2:00.159, which put
him second fastest in this session, with Herbert third.

At this point Barrichello had a massive accident after the hair-pin
bend.  The car went through the tire wall and into the concrete
wall behind.  He got out immediately, and seemed unhurt, but the
bodywork on the whole right side behind the cockpit had come away
from the car, and a wheel and other bits of bodywork were strewn
right across the track.  The session was red-flagged while this
was cleared away.  This was Barrichello's second crash today - he
also had an accident in the morning session.

When the session was re-started, it had stopped raining, and a lot
of people came out immediately.  Schumacher was one of these, and
he was in a big rush to get to ahead of everyone, onto a clear bit
of track, and actually overtook Alboretto, who hadn't realised what
a rush Schumacher was in, and was sticking to his line.  Hill also 
came out after the initial massive rush.

Brundle then went fastest, with a 1:58.477, and on the next lap,
faster again, with a 1:57.934 followed by a 1:58.1.  Then Irvine
went fastest, with a 1:57.760.  He was taking visibly different
lines to everyone else - knowing from experience which parts of
the track have more grip in these conditions.  On the next lap
Lagorce was in teh way of what had looked to be another fast lap
from Irvine, so he gave up and went back to the pits.

At this point, with the track being less like a swimming pool, but
still saturated, Schumacher went fastest again, with Hill second
fastest.  Herbert drove with both left wheels on one of the kerbs,
lost it and spun into the gravel bed, having only a gentle impact
with the tyre wall.  Lehto spun his Sauber again, losing it under
braking coming into the hairpin.

Berger put in a time of 1:58.926 in the closing minutes, which made 
him about 7th fastest.  Brundle went fastest again on the drying
track, with a 1:56.876 as Hill and Schumacher went back into the
pits, having been in the center of too much traffic.  Frentzen
went out for a last minute lap, and went second fastest, pushing
Schumacher and Hill down to 3rd and 4th.

-- 
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