Hill must start well to win in Hungary

DAMON HILL will need to brush up on his starting technique if he Is to give himself the best chance of winning tomorrow's Hungarian Grand Prix here and take another decisive step towards clinching the world championship.

After two poor starts from pole position in both the last two races at Silverstone and Hockenheim, Hill knows he must not squander any such advantage in tomorrow's race.

"Yes, it has been more difficult to get the car off the line," said Hill. The characteristics of the 3 litre engines are different from the old 3.5 litre engines; they don't have so much torque. It is an area we are working on.

Having won here twice before in 1993 and 95, Hill knows better than most that overtaking at the Hungaroring, one of the tightest and least attractive circuits on the Formula One schedule, is almost totally dependent on a mistake by the driver in front.

He does not need reminding that in 1990 Thierry Boutsen won the race for Williams by less than a length ahead of Ayrton Senna's McLaren by the simple virtue of keeping cool and not allowing himself to be ruffled. The fact that Senna was running two seconds a lap quicker than his Belgian rival could not help him once he pulled up on to the tail of the Williams.

Hill completed the first free practice session with fastest time ahead of Michael Schumacher's Ferrari and his own Williams Renault team mate Jacques Villeneuve, either of whom could prove an impossibly tough nut to crack if they get a sniff of the lead.

Nevertheless, Hill finished the first session in an optimistic mood. "I am quite surprised to be as quick as we were," he said. "We started off with a good (chassis) set up, we made some good changes and we have a lot of things we can think about overnight.

"There is certainly a small feel good factor about this circuit for me. It's a circuit I feel familiar with, but Jacques (Villeneuve) has done a very good job to get so close on the first day. He is certainly raring to go."

Villeneuve is 21 points behind Hill with 50 still to fight for over the five remaining races of the season. Although the odds are now clearly stacked against him, Villeneuve has vowed to keep the pressure on his senior team mate right through to the end of the year.

The young Canadian driver's speed on his first ever outing at Hungaroring has certainly impressed many observers, yet the strongest challenge on race day could yet come from Schumacher's Ferrari, a fact perhaps emphasised by fact that his team mate Eddie Irvine emerged from the first session with the fourth fastest time.

"For sure I am more or less on the same performance level as the Williams," said Schumacher, "but it is important to underline that I did less laps than them and so my tyres were slightly better when I set my quick time."

Fifth and sixth fastest times went to the Benetton Renaults of Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi while Johnny Herbert finished the day smiling after the latest specification Ford V10 engine enabled him to set eighth fastest time in his Sauber C15.

Further back, Rubens Barrichello's Jordan was ninth and Martin Brundle wound up 11th with David Coulthard's McLaren 14th, performances which served to underline just what an unpredictable lottery Friday practice inevitably turns out to be.

Jordan's hopes of finishing in the top three in the championship this year now look an impossible dream. Problems with the car's poor aerodynamics and its inability to generate downforce continue to plague them.

Tomorrow's race will be the last Hungarian Grand Prix for the foreseeable future. Next year the race is being replaced by a fixture in Austria on the heavily revamped Al Ring circuit, an emaciated and truncated revision of the epic Osterreichring track where Nelson Piquet set a staggering pole lap of 159.457 mph at the last Fl Austrian Grand Prix to be held there, back in 1987.

To judge by the motorcycle grand prix there last weekend, the Al Ring will be little quicker than Hungaroring. Nor any easier for overtaking.