Panis Dominates Again in Silverstone Testing - Day Two

McLaren's Olivier Panis remained the man to beat, on the second day of testing at Silverstone. The Frenchman, who revealed during the day that he will be joining BAR next season, outclassed McLaren's Mika Hakkinen, who joined the testing today, by over seven tenths of a second.

Testing was slightly interrupted by drizzle before lunch, but overall the track conditions were dry, allowing most teams to make progress in their Belgian GP preperations.

Williams's Jenson Button ran most laps of the day and set the third fastest time; Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jarno Trulli both ran tests for Jordan, as did Eddie Irvine and Johnny Herbert for Jaguar - both teams concentrating on aerodynamic developments and set-up.

After testing Irvine said, "Spa is a very low-downforce, fast circuit like Hockenheim. But we've got some new stuff to test, and that should help the problems that we had in Germany, so let's hope they work! So far, the results have been inconclusive, but we've got through the programme we're working to, and things are moving forward. We just need to improve in all departments, work together more and understand better what I need from the car. We're not 100 per cent in any one area at the moment and that's something that needs to change."

Arrow's Jos Verstappen had a luckless day, when a sensor failure stopped the car on the circuit and brought the team's running to a halt, as the sensor change required the car's floor to be removed with no sufficient time to complete the changes.

Yesterday's times:

Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Panis McLaren-Mercedes 1:24.326 34 2. Hakkinen McLaren-Mercedes 1:24.542 52 3. Button Williams-BMW 1:26.090 80 4. Trulli Jordan-Mugen Honda 1:26.392 43 5. Verstappen Arrows-Supertec 1:26.492 36 6. Frentzen Jordan-Mugen Honda 1:26.592 24 7. Irvine Jaguar-Cosworth 1:27.859 40 8. Herbert Jaguar-Cosworth 1:28.452 45 All Timing Unofficial