Free practice 2: DC on top; Irvine goes second

Whether it was the return of traction control, the arrival of Pedro de la Rosa in the team or a low fuel load which sparked the Ulsterman's sudden turn of speed, it was undoubtedly Jaguar's most impressive performance in a Formula 1 session since it took over the Stewart GP team for the 2000 season.

Irvine left it late in the session to put in his lap of 1m20.615s, which compared to Coulthard's 1m20.107s that he set in the middle of the second free practice period. Eddie's new team mate Pedro de la Rosa had already turned heads with a time good enough for fifth mid-way through the session, but he dropped back to seventh, 0.5secs off Irvine's pace.

Coulthard lowered his time from the first session by two-tenths to end the day with a time 0.8secs under last year's pole. The man who set that mark, Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, was only fifth quickest, but was one of four drivers within a tenth of each other.

Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari) was the first of these, just 0.003secs ahead of a last-lap flyer from British American Racing's Olivier Panis. McLaren's Mika Hakkinen was the last of this foursome in sixth, but suffered a grassy spin at the uphill Turn 11. Again, the Finn seemed to be battling against the handling of his McLaren throughout the session, and almost understeered off at Turn 10 early on.

Behind de la Rosa in seventh, Imola winner Ralf Schumacher was the first of the Williams-BMWs, ahead of Jacques Villeneuve (BAR-Honda), Jarno Trulli (Jordan-Honda) and Kimi Raikkonen (Sauber Petronas).

Juan Pablo Montoya stopped at Turn 4 with what appeared to be an engine failure with his BMW-powered Williams. The Colombian ended the session 13th fastest.

Benetton's Jenson Button got to within three-tenths of Benetton-Renault team mate Giancarlo Fisichella, but they languished in 18th and 19th places.

Jean Alesi set a late flyer to leap to 15th for Prost, ahead of the Arrows pairing of Enrique Bernoldi and Jos Verstappen, and ended the session a second quicker than new team mate Luciano Burti. The Brazilian was just pipped by Minardi's Fernando Alonso for 20th place.

For Practice Session 2 results, click here.