I've had a lot of physiotherapy, but there is not a lot that can be done. I'm OK when I'm driving."In the past he has shown an awesome ability to shrug off similar upsets, and yesterday he reminded onlookers of that by lining up behind the Williams duo, and later being fastest after the rain had left the track surface treacherously damp in places.Fourth and sixth places for David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen, either side of Berger, brought a measure of relief for McLaren, which along with Williams and Tyrrell faces possible exclusion from the 1997 championship after refusing to sign the new Concorde Agreement by which F1 will be governed over the next five years.Although the overriding feeling was one of frustration that the weather should deny a proper outcome to the battle for pole, Villeneuve's impressive performance holds the promise of a serious challenge for the title in the remaining four races.One man all too familiar with the capricious nature of the weather at Spa is Jackie Stewart, soon to return to F1 as a team chief. He was retained in the medical centre for 30 minutes, and did not drive again that day."It's more of a problem walking and going to the toilet than driving the car," he said on Saturday "But the only pain I feel is when I get into and out of it. Then the Canadian retrieved it from an intervening Gerhard Berger in the Benetton, before Hill stole it back again. But in their third attempts, Hill was less happy with his car's set-up, and he was just warming up for a final push when the rain swept in."I was really looking forward to Spa, it's one of the last few real tracks remaining," Villeneuve said. "To have discovered it, and found the limit, is really pleasing And Eau Rouge is a great, but strange, corner.

You're going downhill and there's a wall coming at you that goes uphill The car gets pretty heavy and you can't see the exit. But you can always go faster, that's the odd thing, and the G-force there is like it was on the ovals."Hill, whose starts have been the subject of laborious post-mortems in the past three races, was philosophical as he put a brave face on things while sticking with the foot-operated clutch he prefers.He knows the uphill start will favour his team-mate, who uses a hand- held clutch which allows him to keep his left foot on the brake pedal to stabilise the car before take-off. "Have you ever tried writing with your left hand when you're right-handed?" he asked. "I like braking with my right foot, the left isn't sensitive enough. "But I only qualified 18th!" Damon Hill would have been quite happy for the Canadian to repeat that in reality, but instead the only man who can now deny him the world championship got in a perfect run just before Spa's fickle weather intervened with a rain shower. Villeneuve took the early pole before Hill annexed it seconds later. So I have to use the conventional three-pedal set-up."Michael Schumacher shrugged off a sizeable accident on Friday to take third place.

The German driver lost control of his Ferrari on a 100mph downhill section and crashed backwards into a tyre barrier. "It sounds childish and stupid, but I checked out a new video game, where the track is pretty accurate." He paused and laughed. As he celebrated the second pole position of his Formula One career, he revealed how he had gained an edge before he even got to Belgium. For the first time in four years a goal by Alan Shearer passed unrecorded.. Jacques Villeneuve took no time at all to learn Formula One's greatest circuit, but then he has always liked very quick tracks, and after the sustained 220mph-plus speeds of the Indianapolis and Michigan ovals on which he used to race IndyCars, he can be forgiven for feeling that anything else - even this circuit - is a trifle tame. Six years ago, when King Kenny led Liverpool to another championship crown and Blackburn were breadliners, you would have been joking if you had forecast the rise of the ramshackle Rovers.Ewood Parkers might be reluctant to let go of their recent past but confirmation of how quickly times can change could be found in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph on Thursday night.

It was significant, nevertheless, that those who rang Blackburn's clubcall line on Thursday morning, rather than the local radio station, were greeted by that familiar Glaswegian drawl and a greeting that sounded something like: "Hlo... Skennydalgleesheer."The concern among the fans is that Rovers, with no Shearer, no points and no goals, no longer have the name (if not the voice) that could attract the new players they clearly need Robert Coar, the chairman, does not share their fears "This has never been a one-man club," he maintained "It wasn't about Alan Shearer It wasn't about Kenny Dalglish They'll be the first to admit that Alan's gone Kenny's gone The club will go on We've got to look to the future. We're just as ambitious and determined as ever."The immediate ambition when Jack Walker invested his first pounds 1m was to avoid relegation to the old Third Division. It was fulfilled, with the help of the money that bought Bobby Mimms, Tony Dobson and Steve Livingstone, in the penultimate match of the 1990-91 season. The memory of last year's title success may be starting to fade but Rovers still have 13 international players on their books and their ground is no longer the tramlined timewarp affair that attracted makers of a Hovis commercial not so many years ago. The morning after King Kenny's prompted abdication was confirmed, the phone-in show was bombarded by callers blaming Harford (with the exception of Myra from Nelson, who considered the outrage of having been forced to pay 20p extra for not having cream with her scone at a Clitheroe tea-shop a more pressing matter for public debate).What the Blackburn public did not immediately appreciate was the fact that since his move upstairs at Ewood (where he no longer kept a desk) Dalglish had about as much influence directing first-team football as the honourary vice-president listed above him in the club programme, Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven.