The 1998 season was another unsuccessful one for Rosset, and led to increasing criticism of his abilities. Failing to qualify at Monaco, he spun towards the end of the qualifying session, and embarrassingly beached his car on the kerb when he tried to spin the car round to the face in the right direction. When Murray Walker suggested that people were debating whether Rosset was F1 quality, co-commentator and ex-F1 driver Martin Brundle replied, "it's a fairly short debate, Murray". Rosset has countered the criticism against him, claiming that, for journalists, making a driver look stupid is more lucrative than discovering the truth. He blamed a worn clutch for the incident: "That's why it looks so bad... the clutch wasn't working." Even Rosset's own mechanics were critical of him: after he damaged his car in a collision with Jacques Villeneuve at Monaco and received a warning from the stewards, his mechanics switched the first and last letters of his surname on his paddock scooter to form the word "tosser". Rosset later said, "I never saw that. Maybe behind the scenes, the mechanics, they were saying that. I remember something like that... I don't doubt it."