Damon Hill put in his best practice performance of the year yesterday when he recorded the third fastest lap of the day during the free practice sessions for tomorrow's German Grand Prix.

Only the McLarens bested the Jordan driver who was the fastest Goodyear driver, beating the old enemy and local hero Michael Schumacher into fifth place, with Eddie Irvine sixth and Ralf Schumacher tenth.

Hill has been under fire in recent weeks with talk of lack of motivation and speculation that he will not fulfil the second year of his Jordan contract. The 37-year-old former world champion was delighted with his performance around the long 4.2mile tree-lined circuit on the outskirts of Hockenheim: "It's great to be in the top three. We're just three tenths behind the McLarens and that is very encouraging. The team is now knocking on the door of being consistent top six runners."

First day practice is broken into two one-hour sessions and Hill was fifth in the morning and had used just a single set of tyres until 10 minutes from the end of the second session: "The car felt very good. Honda have done a lot of work and for qualifying we will have the E spec engine which is even better. We spent most of the day getting the race set up right and towards the end we decided to put on a fresh set of tyres and go for a time. It wasn't a real do-or-die lap. I was well within the limits of the car," he added, unfazed by the 215 m.p.h. top speed reached at the end of the longest straight in grand prix racing.

Hill will be hoping that like last year he can bang in a truly impressive race just as the financial negotiations on the year ahead become critical. Yesterday he was asked about his plans: "I have a good idea what I will be doing next year, but it's too early to make any announcement," was all he would say.

Hill believes he can take pole position this afternoon. The former world champion, whose last pole was in Portugal in 1996, sees no reason why he cannot get the better of the McLarens today and enhance his chances of ending his points drought.

"I'm going to be working hard to maintain this practice result and maybe improve on it."

Hockenheim's straights mean the drivers keep the pedal to the floor for up to 13 seconds at a time and the strain is a notorious engine killer. McLaren have been vulnerable in that department, but this being Mercedes' home race, there is a special effort to ensure the first dominant season of Mercedes since the 1955 Silver Arrows was marked with a triumphant home win.

Ferrari and Jordan are strong in the engine department and Michael Schumacher will benefit from having 90 per cent of the support in the 100,000 seater stadium section.

Eddie Irvine was sixth yesterday and has high hopes of returning to the podium tomorrow: "It's all about engines here. We're running a low downforce set up here and there seems to be nothing in the tyres between us and Bridgestone. It's going to be an endurance and reliability battle," he added.

Irvine is determined to close the four points gap on Coulthard in his battle for third place in the drivers' championship while Eddie Jordan's target is to improve on his best result at Hockeneheim - the fifth and sixth place finishes of De Cesaris and Gachot in 1991.