MOTOR SPORT: Two weeks ago in Canada, the rumour mill had Eddie Irvine leaving Jaguar and rejoining Jordan, the team with which he began his Formula One career.

This weekend in Austria the rumour mill has the Irishman being dismissed from Jaguar and being replaced by Renault's Jenson Button.

Irvine, whose contract at Jaguar runs out at the end of the season, yesterday said he had heard that Button's future at Renault was in doubt and that the young Englishman's management had been speaking to a number of teams about his future.

"I've heard Button is getting pushed out of Renault so he's got to go somewhere," said Irvine. "I'm sure he's running up and down the pitlane trying to get in wherever he can. It makes sense."

Button made his Formula One debut in 2000 with Williams, to whom he was contracted for five years. At the end of an impressive rookie season he was, however, forced out, making room for Juan Pablo Montoya.

Button was then loaned out to Benetton, where he had a torrid time, being out-performed by Giancarlo Fisichella. The Englishman was retained for a second year, however, and since the start of this season has performed well for new owners Renault, scoring eight championship points, with fourth places in Malaysia and Brazil and a fifth in Austria. Those results led to speculation that the Englishman would be retained for a third year.

The fly in the ointment is Renault test driver Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard is under contract to Renault boss Flavio Briatore and has been groomed for a premium F1 drive since he delivered a sparkling F3000 drive at Spa in 2000. He was loaned to Minardi in 2001 but brought into the Renault fold as test driver at the start of this season and now Briatore is believed to want him racing for the team next year, with Button set to lose out.

Back on the track at the Nurburgring yesterday, McLaren's David Coulthard set the fastest time in free practice ahead of tomorrow's European Grand Prix. Coulthard warned, however, that three-time race winner Michael Schumacher is likely to usurp him in this afternoon's qualifying session.

The Scot, who set a time of one minute 31.186 seconds, said: "Ferrari and Williams might be a bit quicker tomorrow. We'll wait and see."

Schumacher's shadow already looms large over this weekend via his pedigree at the mountain circuit and yesterday he was just over a tenth of a second slower than Coulthard, despite running with full fuel tanks. "I'm pretty optimistic for the weekend," he said. "We've been competitive on all types of track and there's no reason why that should not be the case here."

Montoya, Ralf Schumacher and their Williams team have been stuttering through the weekend, and the Colombian, who scrapped his way to fifth on yesterday's time sheet, admitted that his Williams FW23 was proving unco-operative. "It hasn't been a very positive day for me," he said.

Jordan's Fisichella was eighth in a morning session but 17th by the end of the afternoon."There is still work to do in finding the best set-up," the Italian said. "At the moment we have a lot of understeer in slow corners and graining with new tyres. It will be difficult to be in the top 10 (qualifiers) but that's our target."