The afternoon's final qualifying session took place in similar good weather conditions to the morning's running. The Ligier drivers were the first to set quick times, and then the leading drivers began to complete their first runs: Schumacher took provisional pole position with a time of 1:23.139, set twenty minutes into the session, and Berger went 0.5 seconds to move up to third. Five minutes later, Hill lowered the benchmark to 1:23.294; Schumacher responded with a time of 1:22.742 eight minutes afterwards; and then Hill put pole position beyond the reach of anyone else after completing a lap in 1:22.115. Schumacher was unable to improve his time on his final run, and then Hill trimmed the pole time to 1:21.952 with his own last effort of the session. It was a dominant performance from the Williams team leader, who went fastest in each of the circuit's three timing sectors, and set three distinct lap times which were all faster than Schumacher's best. Whilst Hill was delighted with his performance, Schumacher found that his Benetton was more difficult to control, and he blamed the disruptive effect of his collision with Frentzen in the morning session for the 0.8 second gap between him and Hill.