Second warm-up times: Irvine quickest

The championship leader eclipsed both McLaren rivals with Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard second and third, leaving his fastest run until very late in the final session.

The world champion appears to be feeling the strain as he slid off twice during the day.

In the second session, Hakkinen spun out and stalled in the gravel trap at Turn one after 30 minutes. He did not rejoin the session.

Meanwhile, Irvine, who leads the Finn by eight points with six races remaining, didn't put a foot wrong.

'Friday's Friday, but after this performance we can look forward with optimism. I'm quite happy the way things have gone,' said the Ulsterman.

'It's a positive sign to be ahead of the McLarens but for qualifying? Who knows?

'Its a great fun circuit; left, right, left right. You are always playing with the car and the back end is hanging out.

'We had a good practice session and the car's getting better all the time. We changed something and it got better, we changed something else and it got better again.

'The car feels good and works well on these tight corners and bumpy straights.'

Rain or shine Irvine claims he is ready for the fight.

He added, 'Whether it rains or not doesn't matter because its the same to everyone. I
would prefer it to be dry because then we can beat them fair and square.'

Irvine's teammate Mika Salo was fifth quickest on a day which means little in the overall scheme of things because most teams concentrate on race car set-up and heavy fuel load running.

Alex Zanardi was also impressive, setting a faster time than team-mate Ralf Schumacher in his Williams, with a 1.21.251 during the second session.