Reigning world champion Damon Hill has testified at the Senna trial. He didn't think it was the alteration to the steering column which caused the crash, he came to this conclusion after studying the footage with Williams engineers: "I came away from the meeting with the opinion that there must have been some other reason for the accident other than the obvious one that there had been a failure in the steering."

Hill also gave his view of the reasons: "My own feeling is that the car looks to be oversteering."

He also stated that you can't separate low tyre pressure and the state of the Imola track: "My idea looking at it is that the car seems to oversteer when it crosses the place on the circuit where there are some marks."

Hill did confirm that there had been alterations made to the steering column, both on Senna's car and his own. "We found it tight in the car (..) in my case, the problem was that there was very little room between myself and the steering wheel. I don't remember the exact date but I seem to remember it was before the start of the championship."

Hill was ordered to switch the powersteering off after Senna's crash and before the re-start: "It was obvious at the restart that they wanted to be sure things were all right in the car. I didn't ask for a reason. I just did what I was told.

The Italian media reports that Ken Tyrrell is about to sell a majority part of his team to Craig Pollock and Julian Jakobi, the business managers of Jacques Villeneuve.

The Tyrrell team is unwilling to comment to this reports. Jakobi and Pollock have the backing of British American Tobacco and it is also said Reynard could get involved.

Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone is reported to be in favour of this initiative. The Tyrrell team could get more finance this way and improve their car.

Tyrrell already got more finance through Barbara, the business woman who wants to keep the memory of Roland Ratzenberger alive.

It is no secret that McLaren is interested in Michael Schumacher but because of Michael's contract with Ferrari they seem to have switched to Ralf.

Ralfs' manager Willi Weber is talking to McLaren boss Ron Dennis for the 1998 season. McLaren will have two vacant seats then.

The Friday sessions are subject to discussion once more. Some team managers don't seem to be in favour of them any more because the teams have tested a lot between the Grands Prix. Benetton boss Flavio Briatore has again stated his idea of having two races per weekend.