The second free practice session was full ...

Published on 23 August 1997 by Verstappen Info Page

The second free practice session was full of problems. No less than three times the session was halted to remove spun cars. The first red flag was caused by Mika Hakkinen. The Finn had a scary moment when a wheel of his McLaren decided to go his own way at les Combes. When the session was restarted the times dropped immediately. Not much later however there was another red flag, this time caused by Jarno Trulli who spun at Rivage. Finally the 3rd interruption was caused by a spin of Gianni Morbidelli. The Italian had put his car in the guardrail close to the pits.
About Jos: The Dutchman had a difficult session. He set a 18th time while his teammate was almost a second quicker and just outside the top 10. Jos tried both the hard and the soft tyre compounds from Goodyear. The soft compound appeared to be the quicker one but started to get blisters fairly soon. For this reason Jos is likely to use the hard compound for the race despite that he is 4 to 5 tenths a lap slower on this tyres.
Jos is fairly dissapointed with the renewed Ford engine. Yesterday he drove with the old one but he could not feel any difference with the new powerplant. Also Jos was not very happy to say the least with the fact that Mika Salo again has a quicker engine. "On the staight he is running 5 to 6 km/h quicker than me while I take Eau Rouge flat out and he is even lifting a bit", according to Jos.
The fastest time was set by Villeneuve who headed Alesi and Frentzen.

In the first free practice session Jos has set the 14th quickest time. His teammate Salo was slightly quicker with a 12th quickest time. The session was held at a drying track which saw most of the drivers changing their intermediates for slick tyres. Jos changed his tyres late in the session but was not able to put in a quick lap. The fastest time was set by Heinz Harald Frentzen.
According to our local reporters Coen, Sandra and Charles the weather looks far better than yesterday. It has been dry all day so we can expect a dry track for the second free practice session and the qualifying session later today.