Wednesday afternoon in Melbourne, four days before flag fall on the first grand prix of the 1999 season. In the McLaren garage, amid a sprawl of wings and nose-cones and from within a spaghetti junction of cabling, comes the first real sign that the overalled technicians enmeshed in this chaos are here to race rather than just tinker with the most expensive toys on the planet.

It's an unearthly sound. It starts as a nasal whine and then, as the accelerator is blipped, transmutes into an explosive threatening growl. Atonal music of the most elemental kind. And as soon as cacophony began it stops, the engine cut, and the mechanics laugh nervous, eyes-to-heaven laughs of relief.

At the other end of the pit lane a small crowd has gathered to gaze on as the new British American Racing team does exactly the same thing, swarming over the skeletal innards of three cars, surrounded by dismembered bits of split-liveried shell.

The interest in the new outfit is intense but it's impossible to tell if it's a fascination with the technology of putting these cars together or just dumb-struck curiosity at the lurid colour scheme the machines have been cursed with.

Midway between these two extremes of pedigree champions and half-breed upstarts is the Jordan garage. The pace appears more sedate than either of its rivals but the work is still frenetic. "We won't know what's what until Friday," says a Jordan spokesperson. "The cars come out of the box and only get their first run on Friday morning, then the telemetry readings are downloaded to the simulator in Silverstone where the data is processed and the results sent back to us. Then we can see what's right or wrong."

It's rocket science in the pursuit of sport. And on Sunday all the technical wizardry will be entrusted to just two men upon whose shoulders the hopes and vast fortunes of the team and its sponsors will rest.

Get it right and the champagne will flow like it did at Spa Francorchamps last year. Get it wrong and the bubbly will be replaced by the tears and gnashing of teeth that turned Monaco into a mausoleum in 1998.

But Damon Hill isn't showing any signs that the pressure is on, at least not outwardly. The following day, in the paddock area behind the Jordan garage, he comfortably fields the questions of the fickle British media, who chomp on complimentary wine gums and toffees like schoolboys at a fete. "I have an optimistic feeling about this car," he says, "It is an improvement over last year's and we're expecting a much, much better start to the season this time. It seems to like the Bridgestones and we've found more and more downforce. So all the things are there, the bare essentials. "But the omens are good. Although we don't expect to go out and grab pole position. I'll be happy to qualify in the top six. Having said that, anything less than the top six and I'll be very disappointed."

The reality is that Jordan must qualify in the top six and do it at every race. More than that, they have to finish in the top six at every race to build on last season, which despite the disasters of the opening half of the campaign proved to be their best to date. The transition from hearty triers to winners has placed enormous pressure on the team, which, fortunately, has been lessened by the strength of the Jordan 199 in testing. "The win has definitely had an effect on the team," admits Hill. "The team crossed over to the other side and became one of the few teams to be a race winner, but the effect is a good one. There is a lot of determination to make sure it won't be a solitary occasion."

The possibility is there. Hill benefits from having a good car at his disposal and is a race winner when given the opportunity to direct a race as a front-runner.

His team-mate, Heinz Harald Frentzen, is one of the quickest drivers in Formula One with four separate lap records to his credit. Last year's Jordan was a powerful beast, as shown with a creditable fourth for Hill and sixth for Ralf Schumacher at the notoriously power-hungry Hockenheim race circuit, and this year the engine is lighter and capable of giving even more grunt.

The Jordan's capability to outgun Williams and Benetton is already being taken as a given in the pit lane, even before a wheel is turned in anger, but it is against the might of McLaren and Ferrari that the true test will come.

Despite a Formula One adage that a win is a win is a win, regardless of how it's delivered, last year's victory at Spa was aided and abetted by the failure of the McLarens or the Ferraris to finish, and Hill and Frentzen have to make inroads into the race positions of particularly Eddie Irvine and David Coulthard.

It is a season which promises much for Jordan and one in which there are promises to keep. Third place in the constructors' championship has been brandished at Jordan personnel by countless pit lane pundits and it is hard to see why that goal is not attainable.

The omens are good and if the fates are to be believed then Damon Hill might just have the prophetic last word. "When I went to get a personalised registration plate I asked did they have 1 22 GP. They didn't and the nearest they could give me was 1 25 GP. I still think that's attainable."