Ferrari lead the way into qualifying

Barrichello begins his session quite strongly and begins to improve on his earlier best. The Brazilian puts in a new personal best with a lap of 1.11.544 as he gets closer to Schumacher at the top. Halfway into the session and the Ferrari duo continue to set the pace but they are still using used tyres and saving the fresh rubber for later. Both Williams drivers are out win new Michelin tyres and Ralf improves his time and takes third place. Schumacher is once again out on track and lapping very close to his best so far but he did make a personal improvement on his best sector 2 time so more to come from Michael as the day goes on. Montoya makes no improvement on his fresh tyres, in fact he looked very uncomfortable with his Williams. Eddie Irvine is once again showing good pace and pops his Jaguar into fourth place.

15 minutes to go and Barrichello is out and once again making improvements he was up at split 2 but crosses the line with a 1.11.394 to edge a little closer to Michael who had once again set a new personal best in sector 2. But overall no improvement before he turned into the pitlane. Schumacher is back out after a change of rear wing and he shaves some more of this best time and sets a new best of 1.11.158. Closing minutes of the session had Eddie Irvine once again moving up to third place and Raikkonen brings out the yellow flags with a small off meaning no further improvements for any drivers. So Ferrari go into qualifying looking very strong and Williams will have to watch out for the high flying Jaguar.