Silverstone test, day two: Guess who's fastest...

Panis, the newly signed BAR driver (see separate story), completed 35 laps working on a chassis set-up for next weekend's Belgian Grand Prix and a new Bridgestone intermediate tyre, to be used for the first time at Spa.

Third fastest was Jenson Button, who spent much of the day testing a revised engine in his Williams-BMW. The 20-year-old completed two stints of 22 laps as endurance tests for the uprated Munich V10, which made it's race debut in Hungary.

Jos Verstappen had a torrid day of engine problems. The Arrows-Supertec refused to start in the morning and having fired up, promptly died halfway round the circuit. The Dutchman did manage to set the fifth fastest time of the day despite the engine blowing in the afternoon.

The sole Jordan-Mugen Honda occupied the fourth and sixth slots with Heinz-Harald Frentzen using the EJ10B in the morning and Jarno Trulli taking the wheel after lunch. Trulli was the quicker of the two, the Italian concentrating on tyre evaluation.

The Jaguars of Eddie Irvine and Johnny Herbert completed the line-up in seventh and eighth places respectively. The Milton Keynes-based team was assessing a new oil tank and a revised engine mapping system.


Olivier Panis McLaren-Mercedes 1m24.33s - 35 laps
Mika Hakkinen McLaren-Mercedes 1m24.55s - 54 laps
Jenson Button Williams-BMW 1m26.09s 82 laps
Jarno Trulli Jordan-Mugen Honda 1m26.40s - 47 laps
Jos Verstappen Arrows-Supertec 1m26.50s - 36 laps
Heinz Harald Frentzen Jordan-Mugen Honda 1m26.61 - 22 laps
Eddie Irvine Jaguar 1m27.56s - 43 laps
Johnny Herbert Jaguar 1m28.46s - 47 laps