Hakkinen: I turned traction control off.

Mika Hakkinen was just 0.085secs from pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix - and then admitted that he wasn't using traction control.

The Finn put in a last-ditch effort to deprive Michael Schumacher of top spot, having watched the German use just eight of his twelve laps to take a dominant pole, but came up just short when it mattered most. Naturally, Hakkinen thought he could have been quicker, even without the supposed advantages of the now legal 'electronic aids'.

"It was a bit disappointing not to get the pole," he said afterwards, "I think I lost a bit of time in turn five, too much. Up to that time things looked pretty good. I lost a bit of the back end in that corner and lost the time but got it back later on. Generally it was good to get the feel of the car in that run because it was performing really fantastically."

Hakkinen revealed that he wasn't using the car's traction control system, which many insiders believed would have helped the drivers set faster times.

"If you have some problems with the car in some corners, you can fix it with the throttle," the double champion explained, "Traction control sometimes doesn't allow you to do that in some places."