Jacques Villeneuve is confident he can take the lead again of the championship. He failed to finish during the last race at Monaco because he hit the barriers. Michael Schumacher won and is now leading the championship with four points over Villeneuve.

Villeneuve said: "At least I have won every time I've finished."

His team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen does also think he can win at Barcelona.

Prost Grand Prix boss Alain Prost is keeping an eye on Damon Hill for next season: "I will be keeping in touch with Damon, but I think it is a little too soon to come to any firm decision."

The new Stewart team wants to receive television income from the Bernie Ecclestone. The Concorde Agreement says teams will only receive this money after they have been in Formula One for two years. Jackie Stewart doesn't agree with this because his team misses out on US$ 12 million a year. He is prepared to go to court if he doesn't get what he wants.

Mika Salo was optimistic about the new ED5 Ford engine after he had tested it: "Much better engine than I dared to expect. When engineers managed to make it work, it was phenomenal to drive. Speeds were up 20 km/h and drivability was excellent compared to the old ED4. Torgue was fine and it kicked in a totally different way than before. It's a pity that in Barcelona there are two long straights in which others can still beat us, but in Montreal we should have a great opportunity to perform well. It's not just the power, but the driveability and speeding up from the corners that counts."

The lap times were down by 1.5 seconds on the Silverstone (England) track.

Salo news provided by Pekka Ranta