Boring German GP for de la Rosa

Having already had a disappointing time in qualifying Hockenheim proved to be a short day's work for Pedro de la Rosa, who retired on the first lap.

The Spaniard made a good start but suffered a transmission problem as he approached the hairpin. He crawled round and pulled off straight away to post the first retirement of the race. Later the team traced the problem to a bevel gear failure, something that has not previously been encountered with the R3.

"Something in the gearbox broke as I was approaching Turn Three in seventh gear," said Pedro. "So there's nothing to say really! I made a good start, the fastest we've seen so far, and what's disappointing is that for once we have a tyre that's good for the race. Except for McLaren, Williams and me, everyone was on soft tyres."

"You make all your decisions orientated to the race, and it was a very short race, full stop. I came back and watched on TV, but it was very, very boring to watch!"

With Eddie Irvine struck by traction control problems it was a doubly disappointing day for Jaguar Racing, as Gunther Steiner admitted.

Pedro had a fairly unusual transmission failure," said the team MD. "We know what it was -- the bevel gear -- and we'll have to find out why. In the end Eddie had a problem with his brakes, and before that he lost traction control, so he was struggling a little bit with that."

"A sensor went 'noisy,' so we had to switch it off because it was doing strange things. It was cutting the engine when it shouldn't, and things like this. So he was driving the car with no traction control, which is not what you want. Otherwise you wouldn't have it there!"

-jaguar-