Australian GP Saturday Ferrari notes

Australian Grand Prix The Ferraris on 2nd and 3rd rows Melbourne, 6th March

Michael Schumacher: third, 1.31.781, 11 laps Eddie Irvine: sixth, 1.32.289, 12 laps

Jean Todt "Despite being on the second and third rows, we are disappointed. We are a long way off the performance level that we should have achieved and that we expected to achieve. We must seek a better understanding of the handling and set up of the car. We are also lacking experience with these tyres and need to know more about their use and what pressure to run. It will be a long hard race tomorrow. Between now and then we will work hard to further improve the technical situation on our car. That way we should be even better prepared for the race."

Michael Schumacher "We have encountered some problems with our car here in Melbourne, which we had not encountered during winter testing. This prevented us from making use of the full performance potential which is definitely there. We know which areas we have to work on before the next race to unlock that potential. We have concentrated on the car's reliability and that is a crucial factor for the race tomorrow, so there is no need to be pessimistic."

Eddie Irvine "We did not change the car very much from yesterday and most of the improvement came from running with new tyres and less fuel. I could have gone faster on my last quick lap, but I made a mistake at the second corner which cost me almost half a second. In race trim the car is quite good, so I think we can have a strong race tomorrow. However, it will be hard to match the McLarens. Because I have done so little running in the new car before the season, this weekend is something of a test session for me."

Chassis: Schumacher no. 190, Irvine no. 191 Temperatures: air 24 C, track 25 C