Hakkinen blitzes second Brazil practice

The McLaren-Mercedes driver set a series of blistering laps towards the end of the session that neither his team mate, David Coulthard, or his Ferrari rivals Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello, were able to respond to.

Hakkinen was the only driver to break into the 1m15s bracket, with a stunning time of 1.15.896 lap that left his rivals reeling. Up until that point, Schumacher seemed able to match any lap that Hakkinen recorded.

David Coulthard was third, coming back from a difficult session where he went off the track more than once. Rubens Barrichello was next up, not quite able to repeat his performance from the morning session. The Brazilian was 0.007s slower than Coulthard.

Fifth, amazingly, was the Arrows-Supertec of Pedro de la Rosa. The Spaniard had not recorded a lap in the morning session, so his performance is all the more remarkable considering the lack of track time. Both Arrows cars performed well in fact, beating the Benettons which also use the Supertec powerplant, de la Rosa's team mate Jos Verstappen finished seventh.

For a second time, the BAR of Jacques Villeneuve was impressive, spending much of the session in fourth spot, though later he was bumped to ninth.

For the moment, however, McLaren would seem to be ahead, having turned the tables successfully on Ferrari since the morning session.