Behind the two leading runners, Ferrari's challenge for pole position faded during the final session. Alesi's car ground to a halt on his first out-lap of the session after losing hydraulic pressure, and he had to share Berger's chassis for the remainder of qualifying. This forced Berger to hurry through his planned programme, making three runs instead of four, before handing his car over to his teammate. The extensive adjustments required to tailor the car's pedal system from Berger to Alesi's preferred set-up meant that he left the pits with only two minutes and 38 seconds of the session remaining. Alesi thus had time for just one flying lap, which was spoiled when Irvine crashed his Jordan at Tabac during the final minutes. As a result, Alesi failed to improve on his Thursday time and dropped to fifth place on the grid, half a second and one position behind Berger. The team's problems allowed Coulthard to improve to third place with a time of 1:23.109, continuing his progress as he became more familiar with the circuit. Häkkinen was another driver to be caught out by Irvine's crash at the end of the session, restricting him to sixth place on the grid ahead of Herbert, who was satisfied to qualify only a second behind Schumacher. Blundell rounded out the top ten in the second McLaren, despite going up the escape road after missing his braking point at Sainte Dévote. Brundle took eighth and Irvine ninth despite his crash, which meant that all six of the British drivers qualified in the top ten.