Zonta achieved his team principal Eddie Jordan's prediction qualifying twelfth and made a driving error on the approach to the first corner. Jos Verstappen begun from thirteenth. The Jaguar pair of de la Rosa and Irvine placed fourteenth and fifteenth and the former slowed and he was almost hit by Irvine leaving the final chicane. Alesi had brake instability and a lack of traction en route to sixteenth and his Prost teammate Luciano Burti could not optimise his car's handling for nineteenth. On his maiden appearance at the circuit, Enrique Bernoldi qualified seventeenth and Giancarlo Fisichella took eighteenth in the faster of the two Benettons as he picked up a large amount of understeer due to changes in the track surface and changed his car's downforce for better straightline speed. Jenson Button had an excessive amount of understeer and he took twentieth. The Minardis of Fernando Alonso and Tarso Marques occupied the final row of the grid in twenty-first and twenty-second. After qualifying, Alonso had all of his qualifying times disallowed because the front wing on his car was found by scrutineers to be less than above the regulation reference plate. The drivers took to the track on Sunday morning for a half an hour warm-up session to fine tune their cars in warm and clear conditions. Panis ran faster than he had done during the weekend with the session's fastest lap of one minute and 18.512 seconds. Coulthard was the faster of the two McLarens in second and his teammate Häkkinen set the fifth fastest-time after the team rebuilt his car overnight. They were separated by Zonta and Irvine in third and fourth places. Schumacher was the sixth-fastest driver in the time sheets and concentrated on assessing two versions of front wings for his vehicle and car set-up for the race. The race began at 13:00 Eastern Standard Time (). Weather conditions at the start were clear and dry. The air temperature ranged from and the track temperature was between ; forecasts predicted no rainfall during the Grand Prix. A record crowd of 111,000 spectators attended the event. Engine stress and fuel consumption were the two main factors for the Grand Prix as the optimum strategy was one of a solitary pit stop. However, a driver in a lightly fuelled car could have an advantage over his rivals and this often resulted in less stress being put on the brakes. Michael Schumacher made a good start to hold the first position from Ralf Schumacher on the inside line going into the first corner.