Brazilian GP Friday Jaguar notes

Jaguar take the next step forward
Herbert and Irvine happy after first day at Sao Paulo

Eddie Irvine and Johnny Herbert finished the first day of practice for the Brazilian GP in 13th and 21st places. Once again technical problems cost both drivers track time, but there was no repeat of the oil system difficulties that struck so severely in Australia.

In the morning session Eddie had completed just four laps and had not set a proper time when an electronic problem ended his session. Despite losing almost an hour, he was able to catch up in the afternoon, when he ran 26 laps with a best time of 1m19.971s. He was only half a second off sixth place, emphasising how close the field is this year. During the session he also tried out a new front wing.

"In the morning I was changing gear then it started cutting out," said Eddie. "But the first few races are going to be difficult for us; we knew that. In the afternoon session we had a programme to do, and we did it. We had a lot of fuel on board, so we're probably alright, and we didn't use new tyres. There's still room for improvement in handling - there's half a second there straight away. I didn't change springs and bars the whole session, because we had the wing to try, and had to do it properly."

Johnny's afternoon session was curtailed by a drive problem, which cost him half an hour. However, he was happy with the laps he completed.

"We made progress, but we stopped half an hour before the end of the last session. It's not engine related. But every time we were going out we were making big, big jumps, so stopping doesn't help too much, especially when the track is going quicker. We'll see how we fare tomorrow; we've got to have a trouble-free day. But we haven't had any of the problems we had last time."

The team's chief operating officer, Paul Stewart, expects to see an improvement on Saturday. "Thirteenth position for Eddie may not look that impressive, but considering how tight things are I expect we can make a considerable move up the order tomorrow. Johnny didn't get enough running in towards the end to set a significant time, but he feels he has plenty in hand."