Silverstone test, day 1: Wurz fastest

The Austrian lapped in 1m24.167s, eclipsing regular driver Mika Hakkinen's fastest morning time by half a second. Hakkinen only completed five laps this afternoon and didn't improve his time.

Hakkinen has yet to announce his plans for next year and he has been linked to various stories of retirement and moves to other teams. But the Finn put such thoughts out of his mind and got back to work with a best time of 1m24.748s around the Silverstone circuit.

Jaguar's Eddie Irvine, attempting to make amends for spinning off at the first corner of Sunday's Hungarian GP, lapped within 0.041s of Hakkinen's time to finish third fastest as he concentrated on Michelin tyre developments. Team mate Pedro de la Rosa, who worked on set-up changes, was fourth fastest in the second Jaguar.

The Arrows team had a disappointing weekend in Hungary with Jos Verstappen and Enrique Bernoldi, and both drivers are out in force at Silverstone this week. Verstappen outpaced his Brazilian team mate by 0.2secs.

Test driver Andre Lotterer was seventh fastest in a third Jaguar and is carrying out development work on wiring systems for next year.

Silverstone test, day one (unofficial times)

Alex Wurz, McLaren-Mercedes B, 1m24.167s, 59 laps
Mika Hakkinen, McLaren-Mercedes B, 1m24.748s, 16 laps
Eddie Irvine, Jaguar M, 1m24.789s, 73 laps
Pedro de la Rosa, Jaguar M, 1m25.461s, 40 laps
Jos Verstappen, Arrows-AMT B, 1m26.068s, 41 laps
Enrique Bernoldi, Arrows-AMT B, 1m26.265s, 65 laps
Andre Lotterer, Jaguar M, 1m26.711s, 41 laps