Jean's Sauber seemed to be suited to the slippery but fast surface of the Catalunya track, lapping in 1'22.388 in the early stages. It appeared that he woulod retain pole as neither McLaren nor Ferrari were able to better the time. Obviously they both made changes to the cars and enabled Mika, Eddie, David and Michael repectively to take the front of the grid. 4th place, behind Eddie was certainly not where Michael wished to be though!

The ever-improving Jarno Trulli claimed 9th for the Prost team, while Jacques Villeneuve stormed to 6th position for BAR - no doubt enlivened by the Honda deal they have secured for the next two years (see last week's motorsport news). Rubens took 7th with Frentzen in the Jordan in 8th. Another dull display by Damon though secured him 11th place, alongside the Sauber of Diniz. The only other surprise was the lack of performance from the Benettons. The aging Supertec engine is being held responsible of course, and there are rumours that Benetton will get new works-Renault engines for next year. Until then they must struggle through this season - just as Williams and BAR must.

Trulli also made a good start, while Barrichello dropped from 7th to 10th. At the back of the grid Panis and Gene failed to get away. Panis finally started from the pitlane, but Spaniard Gene did not - a disappointing day for the Minardi driver

Michael Schumacher was let past Irvine to take the chase to Villeneuve. Unfortunately for Schumacher Jacques was not in the mood to let the Ferrari driver through and slowed Michael enough to give Mika a safe cushion in which to pit and still join ahead of the Ferrari. More bad luck befell Schumacher as he came in for his pits and was slowed in the pit lane by Pedro De La Rosa. He was never to recover, although he did catch Coulthard in second place after the first round of pit stops. It was not to be though.

Back to the race: Hakkinen set four consecutive fastest laps at the start to build a gap of 2.7 seconds. Coulthard was unable to keep up and Villeneuve was holding the Ferraris up. The rest of the field remained static, except when Wurz made a mistake on lap 4, riding across a sandtrap, allowing Salo to take 16th place.

Villeneuve remained under intense pressure from Schumacher, but there was nothing that the Ferrari driver could do to pass him, even though Villeneuve seemed to be driving on the ragged edge. This story was repeated down through the field with the order unchanging until the pit stops began on lap 17 with De La Rosa, followed by Herbert and other 3-stoppers.

Irvine was the first of the major runners to pit on lap 22, followed by Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher. The Ferrari team did an excellent job to get Michael out before the BAR team finished with Villeneuve. Coulthard, and the briefly third placed Alesi stopped on lap 26. During this pit stop phase Zanardi's Williams suffered a gearbox failure and the field further thinned out as both Alesi and Panis disappeared with similar problems.

As Hakkinen increased his lead, Coulthard found handling problems with his second set of tyres and Schumacher closed in on the Scot. This was stage at which Michael lost time in the pit lane and after Coulthard's stop, David came out just ahead of Michael. He remained there until the chequered flag, handling problems banished from his mind!

The order remained unchanged until the closing laps where the McLarens and Ferraris were lapping EVERYBODY! Barrichello moved out of Schumacher's way but inadvertently allowed Hill to overtake also - it is a pity he didn't try it a bit earlier... A well-deserved 1-2 for McLaren then, with Ferrari gaining enoughpoints to keep them ahead in the manufacturers' and drivers' championships. Only 1 week to the Canadian GP as this "goes to press". We'll report on the race on June 26.