Eddie Irvine admitted yesterday that he feels the pressure is off after he and team-mate Mika Salo made a comfortable and quick start to their German Grand Prix campaign in Hockenheim.

Irvine, running with new wings, was quickest in the morning practice, despite and early spin which restricted him to just seven laps, followed by Salo who posted an impressive time just four hundredths of a second behind the number one Ferarri. The Ulsterman slipped to second at the end of the afternoon stint as Prost's Jarno Trulli stole in on a presumably light fuel load, but Irvine was unmoved by the times.

"It's good to be quick today," he said, "but the time doesn't mean much. We still have a lot of work to do, because I'm having trouble controlling the back end of the car, which is why I spun. The new wings make the car very fast down the straights but hard to control in the slow sections. "But, I feel under less pressure than I did in Zeltweg, my first race as team leader," he added. "Now I am more confident and content and hope that will come through in my driving."

Irvine will also be bouyed by the underperformance of the McLarens with Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard finishing the day 10th and fourth respectively. Both drivers suffered early morning spins and managing director Ron Dennis admitted that the session had not gone as planned.

"Practice was a little messy for us," he said. "But both drivers were working hard to optimise the cars on high mileage tyres and appropriate fuel loads. Free practice times, as always on a Friday, are virtually meaningless."

Confidence in a better outing today was echoed at Jordan, where both cars proved unpredictable and nervous. Jordan had been comfortably ahead of the pack in testing for this race at Monza two weeks ago but despite a new Honda powerplant designed specifically for the power requirements of Hockenheim, the team suffered somewhat yesterday.

"I lost most of the morning session because I went off, so I spent most of the afternoon working on race set up," said a 17th-placed Heinz-Harald Frentzen. "But I wasn't going for a quick lap time so I am not concerned that I'm 17th. I'm quite confident that we will go a lot faster tomorrow."

There was better luck for Damon Hill who finished eighth after placing as high as fourth in the afternoon session.

"That was a good session," he said. "We did a lot of things to improve the car and I'm pretty happy with the progress we made. It's extremely hard to find a perfect set-up but the car felt quite good and if we continue in this direction we should be very competitive."

Meanwhile, Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone believes Michael Schumacher will quit the sport if his British Grand Prix crash has a damaging effect on him.

Ecclestone reckons the two-time former champion will continue only if he returns from the broken leg he suffered at Silverstone two weeks ago as committed as ever.

The German could miss the rest of the season following his accident - and there is speculation that he might not return after pocketing more than £100 million from motor racing.

"Michael is a racer," said Ecclestone. "He will always be 10 10ths. He is not the sort of guy who would want to drive nine 10ths."