From Justin Hynes at Silverstone

24/04/00: As the thunderheads finally moved on and a bruised and battered Silverstone began a slow and painful recovery in the pale glow of the Easter Sunday sunshine, so too did McLaren begin to see faint rays of light at the end of a tunnel that up until yesterday was beginning to look unending and impenetrably dark.

Reeling from three consecutive defeats and a string of failures, the Silver Arrows were looking decidedly blunted as they rolled into a sodden Silverstone on Thursday. But by yesterday afternoon, the edge was back as David Coulthard recorded his second consecutive victory at the British Grand Prix.

The victory was sweetened by Mika Hakkinen crossing the line just fractions of a second behind the Scot to score the team's first one-two since Belgium last year, a result which goes some way to banishing the storm that has hovered around Woking since the season's start.

Coulthard said the victory ranked as one of the finest of his seven wins. "It's right up there with the best, because I've always said you judge the wins by the competitors who are standing beside you on the podium and you've beaten them and that's a great feeling."

The beating of his main rivals was accomplished with relative ease. Starting from fourth on the grid, the Scot benefited almost as soon as the start lights went out when both third-placed Mika Hakkinen and fifth-placed Michael Schumacher made poor starts.

From there Coulthard only ever had to worry about getting by Jordan's Heinz-Harald Frentzen in second and pole-winner Rubens Barrichello, whose superior start allowed him to keep his premier spot into the first corner.

Frentzen was taken out of the equation after 23 laps when the German, on a less efficient twostop strategy, pulled in for fuel and the lead McLaren was presented with the opportunity to pour the pressure on Barrichello.

After trailing the Brazilian for seven laps, Coulthard was presented with his opportunity as the pair entered Becketts corner and Barrichello slipped wide.

"I thought I'd be stuck behind Rubens until the pit stop and I knew that I could probably go longer than he could," he said. "But then he made a small mistake coming out of Becketts and I got it right and got a run on him." Barrichello, however, later said that the overtaking manoeuvre was only possible because his Ferrari was fast developing a technical problem, one which six laps later forced him into retirement.

"Around five or six laps before I retired I started to feel something wrong," he said. "Then I began to have problems with the clutch and the throttle and that's why Coulthard could get past."

With the Scot opting for a later single stop than many, the march to victory was never in any real doubt as the two-stoppers dropped away. Coulthard admitted it had been straightforward in the end.

"Actually, it couldn't have been any easier," he said. "The only hiccup was right at the end when I had a minor gearbox problem and I thought, `Oh no, please don't happen to me'. But thankfully it held together and it's a great result for the team, especialy as we had both cars finish first and second."

Coulthard's win moves him into a clear second place in the drivers' championship with 14 points, a full 20 points behind Schumacher, but team-mate and defending champion Mika Hakkinen continues to struggle with the first part of what is fast becoming a much troubled season.

Frentzen, running a two-stop strategy that was out of step with the main front runners, dropped from his second place start to fourth after his pit stops, but he looked in little danger of ceding that place to the chasing pack.

But then, with just 10 laps to go, the gearbox problems that have plagued the EJ10 since the beginning of the season struck again and Frentzen was forced to give way to the Williams and eventually pull into the garage to retire.

"It stuck again in sixth gear. We had a problem with the gearbox again," said a disappointed Frentzen. "A mechanical piece was causing the problem. We were competitive all weekend, so it's frustrating for me to come away with no points."

The season now moves on to Barcelona, a venue that has become something of a McLaren stronghold in recent years, with the team recording one-two finishes at the Circuit de Catalunya at the last two attempts.