Canadian Jacques Villeneuve took pole position in his Williams-Renault but retired after a first-lap collision, while reigning World Champion Damon Hill, in his first race for the Arrows team, suffered a throttle failure on the formation lap and did not start.

This race marked the debuts of Ralf Schumacher, Jarno Trulli and Shinji Nakano; the entry of Bridgestone as a tyre supplier to compete with Goodyear; and the only appearance of the MasterCard Lola team, whose cars were over 11 seconds off Villeneuve's pole time and thus did not qualify.

It was also the first Formula One race to be broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom, with commentary from Murray Walker, Martin Brundle and James Allen.

The change that dominated the drivers line up was Damon Hill's surprise sacking from Williams having just won the World Championship.

In the week up to the race, there were rumours, which proved to be unfounded, of Hill having left Arrows due to the poor performance of the car.

The new Prost Grand Prix team kept Olivier Panis and signed Japanese rookie driver Shinji Nakano.

Bridgestone also made their first official appearance in Formula 1, breaking Goodyear's reign as a sole tyre supplier which began in 1992.

[6] Canadian Jacques Villeneuve took his fourth career pole position with a lap of 1:29.369, while Heinz-Harald Frentzen could only manage a 1:31.121 to fill the remaining spot on the front row.

The session was red flagged with just over two minutes remaining after a collision between Gerhard Berger and Nicola Larini on the straight between turns 10 and 11.

Damon Hill struggled during the session, only just qualifying inside of the 107% limit due to an oil leak which hampered the lap times.

Both of the Jordan cars soon retired from the race, Ralf Schumacher suffering a gearbox problem and Fisichella spinning off the track while passing Barrichello.

Jean Alesi retired from the race after running out of fuel, to the fury of his Benetton team, who had been trying to call him into the pits for 5 laps, an incident met with amusement from the ITV commentators.

In the end, his pit stop was delayed for several seconds by a right rear tire problem, allowing Coulthard and Schumacher to move ahead.