RUBENS BARRICHELLO nursed his Jordan Peugeot home into fourth place in yesterday's Argentinian Grand Prix, a race which was won by Damon Hill to make it three in row in 1996 for the Williams Renault driver.

While Barrichello drove the closing laps cautiously in a desperate bid to get his fuel to last to the finish, his former team mate Eddie Irvine coaxed his ill handling Ferrari to fifth place. The points moved the Ulsterman into fourth place and ahead of his team leader Michael Schumacher in the 1996 world championship standings.

Barrichello started from sixth on the grid and ran in that position for much of the early part of the race. In an unusual development, the safety car was brought onto the track as Luca Badour overturned his Forti. Gary Anderson seized the opportunity and, using his Indycar experience, called Barrichello in for his one and only pit stop. Barrichello rejoined as the field circulated under the yellow flag, and quickly pulled up in the queue which formed behind Hill.

The move saved Barrichello the normal 30 seconds lost in a racing pit stop and, coupled with the steam's strategy of a single full stop, all owed Barrichello move into fourth place with 10 laps to go.

"Those last laps were terrible," said the 24 year old afterwards. "I was driving watching the fuel position all the time. I cut the revs down to 13,000 and changed up as early as possible and even still there was no fuel left at the end.

Eddie Jordan was pleased with the result at a slow speed, bumpy venue that doesn't suit the Jordan Peugeot. "The engine is now good at the top end, but there is only one straight here and our cars aerodynamics work best on smooth tracks and Buenos Aires definitely does not qualify on that front," said Jordan.

Martin Brundle had another bad day in his Jordan, was never really in contention and eventually retired after Tarzo Marques smashed into the rear of his car breaking the wing and gearbox.

Irvine had a simple strategy for the race. "I find the car very hard to drive so I was determined to take it easy and hope that others would fall off or break down."

With 12 of the 22 starters falling by the wayside, including Michael Schumacher who suffered rear suspension damage, Irvine took fifth place to take his 1996 points tally to six. Schumacher is on four points.

The annual ominous warning of the madness of refuelling came earlier in the season than normal, as Pedro Diniz's Ligier spilt gallons of fuel which burst into flames after the refuelling valve on the car failed to closed properly. He was lucky to escape alive, and the incident brought back memories of Lonenza Bandini's fatal fire in Monaco in 1996.

Diniz revealed afterwards that he had escaped virtually without injury. "I don't know what happened, but just saw the flames," said the 25 year old. "I just stopped the car as quickly as possible. I unstrapped myself and got out of the car as quick as I could."

Hill left Dublin 10 days ago with 10 points on the championship leaderboard. He returns tomorrow with a perfect 30 and his closest pursuer is team mate Jacque Villenueve on 12. Hill is relaxed and confident and it showed in his driving. He remained unruffled for lap after lap with Schumacher only feet behind.