Hill has been a much more relaxed figure throughout the early part of the this Austrian GP weekend, and he admitted that he felt the pressure was now off. "The contemplation of not driving is quite a sobering thing when you've been driving for a long time, but I don't really want to go into what happened in the last few weeks. I'm here for the rest of the season to help Eddie, but also to go out there and get what I can from the races that remain.

"If I can repeat the balance of the car that we got today then there's every chance that we could be looking in on a top six qualifying position, which would be nice."

While Hill was confounding theories that he would slide back into mediocrity following the high of his home grand prix, his team-mate, Heinz Harald Frentzen, suffered mechanical problems and failed to compete in much of the afternoon session.

The German was fifth in the morning but struggled after lunch with gearbox problems and slipped to 15th. But unlike his team-mate, Frentzen was reading little into what he claimed was a normal Friday.

"My position today doesn't reflect where we should be," he said, "but I feel confident that tomorrow we will put things right."

While Hill and a fourth-placed Ricardo Zonta of BAR were providing the upsets of the day, the bulk of the attention was firmly focused on the Ferraris of Eddie Irvine and stand-in driver Mika Salo, making his first outing in the team's number three car.

Salo's debut as Michael Schumacher's replacement began brightly, with the 32-year-old finishing a creditable fifth in morning practice, but in the afternoon the Finn spun the unfamiliar Ferrari F399 into the gravel trap, an off that stranded him in 16th and resulted in him missing the rest of the session.

"The morning session went very well," he said. "We made a lot of changes to the car and improved it a lot. In the afternoon we did some pit stop practices, which was useful as everything is new to me here. Then, unfortunately, I made a small mistake and lost control of the car in a high speed corner, but it's all part of the leaning process. Unfortunately it cost me 40 minutes of practice time."

With Salo ready to ride shotgun, Irvine yesterday faced into his first race as Ferrari number one, and, after running second to McLaren's David Coulthard in the morning, lost his way as he experimented with different set-ups in the afternoon. However, the Ulsterman was still confident that today's qualifying will provide the right results.

"This was a usual Friday," he said. "Doing lots of laps on old tyres and with heavy fuel loads, so I'm not bothered about the times. The car is pretty much the way it should be and it will all come out tomorrow."

Whether Irvine can deliver on the opportunity being presented to him remains to be seen. With the McLarens of Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen effortlessly occupying the top two positions respectively, Irvine will have to be at his provocative and aggressive best to force his way into close competition with Hakkinen.

"It's half way through the season and I'm eight points behind Mika," he said. "If it keeps going that way I'll be 16 points behind at the end of the season. We have to turn it round, but if we don't, it won't be through any lack of trying on my part.

"But," he added hastily, "We've seen how difficult it has been in the past. I mean, Michael Schumacher's the best driver in the world and he couldn't win it."