Hakkinen anxious about Irvine's form

The Ferrari team leader, who has an eight point lead in the title chase, added to his rivals woes by out-performing him on the first day's practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Hakkinen spun twice and wasted a quarter of the day's allotted testing time in a gravel trap.

But afterwards he shrugged off his problems and said Saturday morning would put them right.

'I am worried about the situation but I just have to stay cool,' he said. 'Eddie's points lead is enormous.

'At the start of the season I thought defending the title would be easy. What's happened is surprising but if the last two Grands Prix had gone to
plan I would still be ahead.

'But now I am hungry for the fight. It is a more challenging and exciting
situation now.

'I will be driving to the maximum until the end of the season and hope the car will stay together.

'Negative things happen during a season but when you put all the things that have gone wrong together, like a tyre explosion, then it suddenly affects you psychologically.

'When I lost my rear brakes in Canada I was doing 200mph and I just hoped that would be my last experience of something like that this season.

'But then it happens in Hockenheim at even faster speed. I thought the car was never going to stop, when you are going backwards at that speed it is incredible.

'All you can do is wait for the impact. I was lucky to come out of the accident without injury because the car was destroyed.

'I had a positive day's practice until I spun off during the second session but I'm not worried about missing the second half of the session as we will make good progress tomorrow before qualifying.'

Coulthard was a place behind him in third: 'It is Friday the thirteenth, and surprisingly everything is going to plan.'