On the second formation lap, Heinz-Harald Frentzen stalled his Sauber whilst attempting to leave the grid and was forced to start from the pitlane. The other cars started from the grid in the order they were at the point the race was stopped. Michael Schumacher had a poor start and Gerhard Berger took the lead on track (but Schumacher still led the race overall due to the amount of time he was ahead of Berger before the race was stopped). Hill, from third, made contact attempting to overtake Schumacher at the Tosa corner, dropping Hill to the back of the field and was forced to make a pitstop in order to fit a new nose cone. Hill battled back to finish in sixth position.