David Coulthard has said he has no reason to fear Michael Schumacher as the two renew their championship battle at this weekend's Austrian grand prix.

The Scot, who arrived at the A1 Ring yesterday hoping to continue the run of good luck that has seen him take two victories from the last three races, claimed that the threat from Ferrari star Schumacher is not uppermost in his mind.

"I don't fear anyone," said the McLaren number two yesterday. "I just pay attention to what I'm doing. If there is a challenge, the biggest danger comes from within your own team. He (Mika Hakkinen) is the only one who knows what's happening with the car and the team . . . but when it comes down to it, all I'm trying to do is get the best out of myself and that means being in front."

Coulthard has consistently upped the pressure on championship leader Schumacher since Monaco, where the McLaren driver took his second victory of the year. He finally proved his title credentials at Magny Cours two weeks ago when, after battling the German for 10 laps, and following several incidents which included much publicised obscene gestures from Coulthard, the Scot passed Schumacher to take the race win and close the gap at the top of the drivers' table to just 12 points.

Honda, meanwhile, have revealed that they only began to seriously study the possibility of supplying Jordan with works engines when the company learned that the Irish squad had terminated its relationship with current suppliers Mugen-Honda.

Honda spokesman Takefumi Hosaka admitted that, as late as the European Grand Prix in May, the motor manufacturer had no plans to supply a second team, but that the company's plans rapidly changed.

"The situation changed very quickly," he said. "When we learned that Jordan had given notice to Mugen that they were terminating their engine contract at the end of the year, we began to investigate the possibility of supplying them with our engines. They had contacted us but it was only when we had official confirmation that the contract was over that we started feasibility studies. After that it took maybe one month to finalise everything."

Two weeks ago Eddie Jordan admitted that he had experienced weeks of sleepless nights in the run-up to the Honda announcement, which is more than believable, given the team's precarious, engine-less, month-long gamble.

Mugen's relationship with the team has several more months to run however, and yesterday Jordan arrived in Austria preparing to race with the new specification Mugen engine, which has been run in qualifying in the past two races. The team could not, however, match the new engine with the revised EJ10B chassis which proved so successful in tests at Silverstone last week.

The remodelled chassis reportedly gave the drivers almost three tenths of a second per lap, an improvement which would put both Heinz Harald Frentzen and Jarno Trulli within touching distance of the McLarens and Ferraris. The team were, however, unable to prepare the requisite parts in time for this weekend's race and had to postpone the arrival of the EJ10B at least until the German Grand Prix in two weeks' time.

Both Frentzen and Trulli have enjoyed good days at the A1 Ring in the past. Trulli, in particular, made a memorable formula one debut at the circuit in 1997, when he stood in for the injured Olivier Panis. The Italian, then an untried 22-year-old, qualified third and led the race until just 13 laps from the finish when his engine blew. It was his performance here that, in part, secured him his drive with Jordan, Eddie Jordan citing the former Prost pilot's debut as a defining reason for hiring Trulli's talents at Spa last September.

Frentzen too, has had memorable days in Austria. Despite running a Jordan 199 that was uncompetitive at high downforce circuits such as the A1 Ring last year, the German managed to qualify fourth and held that position to the chequered flag.

Elsewhere, Silverstone chiefs have refused to react to statements from FIA president Max Mosley in which he claimed Silverstone was "probably the least impressive of all the venues in the world championship." Mosley, having already handed the troubled circuit a severe official reprimand following this year's weatherand traffic-wrecked British Grand Prix, again went on the offensive yesterday, claiming on BBC Radio that the track was "shaming" to Britain.

"It's like saying we would like to run the Olympic Games in England, but there is only one little stadium and it's down the end of a track and it takes six hours to get there," he said.

However, representatives of the troubled circuit refused to answer the FIA president's criticisms, instead choosing to concentrate on a soon-to-be-launched programme of development work designed to keep Silverstone on next year's calendar at least. Full details of the development work are expected to be announced within the next few days, but may include new car parking using semi-constructed stretches of the new Silverstone bypass, due for completion in 2002.