Frentzen fastest in final practice

Having been second to Ralf Schumacher in the first morning session, Frentzen turned the tables an hour later to go fastest by 0.4s.

David Coulthard and Damon Hill also took turns at heading the timesheets but ended up behind the two flying Germans.

Jacques Villeneuve put in a last minute lap to move back up to fifth place on his favourite circuit. The Canadian has been spectacularly fast here ever since he came to Formula One and could be the star of qualifying this afternoon.

Mika Hakkinen was only seventh fastest but should be able to go much quicker this afternoon.

He aborted a couple of impressive laps and found yellow flags at some inopportune moments. The 1.2s gap between Frentzen and Hakkinen this morning is unlikely to be repeated in qualifying.

The Ferrari's were closer to the pace, Eddie Irvine winding up sixth quickest despite going through the gravel and having to pit for a new nose section earlier in the session.

His team-mate Mika Salo improved to eighth ahead of the two Stewarts, Rubens Barrichello having now overcome his handling problems.

Also improving on their earlier performances were Alex Zanardi and Jean Alesi, while both the Prosts got back out on track by the end of the session despite the team's difficult morning.

Benetton will probably be the least happy team in the pit lane however. Giancarlo Fisichella brought out the red flags when he crashed at the Bus Stop, removing his left front wheel and coming to rest on the pits straight.

His team-mate Alex Wurz improved on his morning pace but then had to park with a mechanical problem.

BAR's Ricardo Zonta suffered a similar fate and was only 17th overall.

So with less than two hours before the start of qualifying, Jordan and McLaren should be reasonably confident about their chances. Ferrari have some work to do still, while Williams and BAR will be pinning their hopes on the heroics of Ralf Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve respectively.

Practice times from Spa: