Silverstone & Barcelona testing 98-03-17

SILVERSTONE, England, March 17 (Reuters) - McLaren drivers Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard continued to set the pace in the new Formula One season by posting the fastest times in test- ing at Silverstone on Tuesday. The pair coasted to a one-two success in the Australian grand prix earlier this month. Hakkinen set the fastest time of one minute 24.4 seconds on Tuesday, with Coulthard one-tenth of a second behind. Austrian Alexander Wurz, in a Benetton, was third in 1:26.7, with Tyrrell's Tora Takagi (1:28.0), Arrows' Mika Salo (1:28.3) and Pedro Diniz (1:30.2) and Stewart's Jan Magnussen (1:29.2) behind him. Ralf Schumacher showed Jordan were making progress when he finished fastest at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, ahead of Williams pair Jacques Villeneuve and Heinz-Harald Frentzen. Schumacher set a 1:22.17 benchmark in the morning run. At the end of the session Villeneuve (1:22.72) was closest in the FW19, and Frentzen, in this season's FW20, managed 1:23.70.