Active second practice for Austrian GP

Once again a Minardi was the first on track in the second free practice for the Austrian Grand Prix, Mark Webber out as soon as the pit lane was open. Conditions remained fair with track temperature up to 25 degrees. Jordan's Takuma Sato went off at Remus and Ralf Schumacher ran his Williams wide into the gravel at the first corner in the first five minutes. Allan McNish spun the Toyota and Giancarlo Fisichella also went off, more action at the start of this session than in the whole of the first one.

McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen seemed to have sorted out his earlier problems and was up in third fastest early on and Heinz-Harald Frentzen was fourth for Arrows. Olivier Panis continued his form although team mate Jacques Villeneuve was struggling with his BAR. The Renault duo of Jenson Button and Jarno Trulli were inside the top ten while the Ferraris were putting in some fast laps -- Michael Schumacher was slightly ragged, running wide on more than one occasion but still remained at the top of the times.

The Williams', who were running high fuel loads today, had Ralf Schumacher in third and Montoya up to second. Enrique Bernoldi echoed team-mate Frentzen's pace, going fourth fastest, Raikkonen still in the top six although David Coulthard was yet to improve. Frentzen and Fisichella had a trip into the gravel at Remus while Nick Heidfeld crawled up to the same corner with some kind of problem and finally switched the Sauber's engine off. Fisichella spun and he too killed the engine bringing his session to a premature end.

Eddie Irvine jumped up to eighth, the Irishman doing pretty well and team-mate Pedro de la Rosa improved to sixth, Jaguar looking a bit more on the pace. Ralf and Coulthard had small offs and Frentzen span again at the start of the pit straight, a lot of minor incidents in the practice. Allan McNish took his Toyota up to fifth fastest in the final minutes but the Ferraris remained on top with a 1:10.549 for Rubens Barrichello. Final top six classification: Barrichello, M.Schumacher, Montoya, Raikkonen, McNish, Bernoldi.