INTERMITTENT rain and wildly changing track conditions complicated the normally well ordered routine of yesterday's free practice session for tomorrow morning's Japanese Grand Prix, leaving championship contenders Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve an uncertain fifth and sixth fastest.

Given dry conditions, the race could reasonably be expected to yield a straight fight between the two Williams drivers. Yet the initial signs are that Gerhard Berger's Benetton Renault, Mika Hakkinen's McLaren Mercedes and Michael Schumacher's Ferrari could complicate the equation as strong contenders for victory in this final race of the season.

Hill and Villeneuve usually play their cards close to their chest on Fridays, quietly working on the intricacies of their chassis set up in preparation for the race and not getting drawn into largely meaningless battles for fastest time.

On this occasion, however, with the track surface drying steadily throughout the session, there was simply no point in attempting to fine tune the chassis for conditions which might have altered significantly even before they accelerated back on to the circuit.

Even so, Hill, who has to gain only a single point to clinch the title even if Villeneuve wins the race, finished the day in a cautiously upbeat mood.

"I think that was a good start," he said. "I am quite happy with the car at the moment and in both dry and wet conditions it was competitive. It was half and half conditions and at the end I elected to go out and do a longish run, so I have a good feel for what the car might feel like in the race if the conditions are like this."

Villeneuve, whose previous experience at Suzuka was confined to the days when he contested the Japanese F3 championship, was equally sanguine. "The track feels good and so does the car," he said, "but we didn't do any set up work today. I would obviously prefer a dry qualifying (session) because we have a very good car.

Of the opposition, Berger, in particular, would like to duplicate his 1987 win here for Ferrari after experiencing a difficult first season at Benetton. It was thus with considerable satisfaction that Berger ended up setting fastest time yesterday, even though it was at the personal cost of a $5,000 fine incurred for exceeding the speed limit in the pit lane.

"I think we are very competitive here," said Berger. "I am extremely pleased, because usually at the last race of the season the team is not very motivated and all the work is left to the driver. But this is not the case with Benetton where the team is still pushing very hard for a good result."

Meanwhile, Hakkinen's second fastest time raised hopes that McLaren's three year absence from the victory podium might come to an end.

Finally, Schumacher can never be discounted, particularly in the event of a wet race. The irony that he could conceivably help arch rival Hill to clinch the championship was not lost on the Ferrari driver. "But I think Damon fully deserves to win the title this year," he said with a grin.