Jacques Villeneuve has been re-instated for the ...

Published on 11 October 1997 by Verstappen Info Page

Jacques Villeneuve has been re-instated for the Grand Prix of Japan. The Canadian was originally disqualified after he set his quickest time when there was a local yellow flag out on the circuit in free practice. The yellow flag, which indicates a potential dangerous situation on the track, was shown because the Tyrrell of Verstappen had been parked trackside. Villeneuve already had a suspended race ban for the same offence. His suspended ban was converted to his exclusion for the rest of the weekend. Williams has lodged a protest against this. This way Villeneuve is allowed to raced. However there is a possibility that his results in Sunday's race will be taken away by people behind the green table when the appeal is heard on 26 October. Villeneuve already threathened to quit Formula 1 in case of a disqualification.
Michael Schumacher, Johnny Herbert, Ukyo Katayama, Heinz Harald Frentzen and Rubens Barrichello committed the same offence but came away with suspended bans.

Everything is set for a thrilling conclusion of the Formula 1 World Championship. In the penultimate race of the season the tension is fierce with title rivals Villeneuve and Schumacher starting from the front row of the grid. In today's qualifying practice the Canadian had the edge over the German by only six tenths of a second.

Jos had to be satisfied with a 4 seconds gap to the leader in the championship which gave him 21st place. Verstappen was quicker than teammate Salo. Probably this came as a surprise to the Dutchman as it is only his second race at Suzuka. Mika Salo has far more experience on this track as he spend some years in Japan driving the domestic Formula 3000 series.

Also in the first free practice session this morning Verstappen out-drove his teammate. Unfortunately in the first free session Verstappen's Tyrrell develloped a fuel pressure problem causing him to park his car. The session was stopped for a while to remove the stranded Tyrrell which was in a potential dangerous place.
In the qualifying session we also saw the red flags out for a while. This time it was for Morbidelli's Sauber that had hit the tyrewalls at a pace too fast for comfort.

For a complete overview of all session times you can take a look at our season page.