Barrichello fastest in morning warm-up

With half of the 30-minute session gone, the future seemed orange, with Jos Verstappen just edging his Arrows team mate Pedro de la Rosa at the top of the time sheets. But in the final 10 minutes, F1's status quo began to be re-established: McLaren's pole-sitter, Mika Hakkinen, and his team mate David Coulthard went one-two with five minutes to go, swiftly followed by Barrichello banging in a 1m12.825s lap to go top.

Michael Schumacher made it an all-Ferrari/McLaren top four, lapping in 1m13.015s, but Verstappen fought back at the very end, demoting the German to fifth with a 1m12.785s lap and leaving the final order Barrichello, Coulthard, Hakkinen - who had a final corner 'off and on' in the closing seconds - Verstappen and Schumacher.

BAR's Ricardo Zonta continued to mine a rich seam of Austrian form, taking sixth ahead of Pedro Diniz's Sauber - another surprise - while Ralf Schumacher brought some colour back to Williams-BMW's cheeks with eighth, ahead of Jacques Villeneuve's BAR and de la Rosa, who didn't beat his mid-session time.

At the blunt end of the time sheets, Jean Alesi was 22nd and last for Prost, one place behind Jaguar stand-in Luciano Burti. But putting Burti's performance into perspective, his team mate Johnny Herbert was only 19th, half a second to the good.

The weather in the session remained dry, but showers for the race itself have not been ruled out.

For full warm up times click here.