European GP: Jaguar Friday notes

Free practice was today completed under cloud as drivers familiarised themselves with the revised Nurburgring circuit. Jaguar Racing drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Eddie Irvine worked through a typical Friday job list that involved tyre evaluation and set-up work. Neither driver reported any problems, but the high downforce demands of the Nurburgring circuit will pose a tough challenge for Jaguar Racing over the course of what is expected to be a difficult weekend. Pedro finished in 14th place overall with Eddie positioned in 21st position. The drivers used the time allocated to the full and completed a combined total of eighty-seven laps.

Niki Lauda CEO and Team Principal

"Today hasn't been about Formula One - today has been all about football. The F1 paddock has found it very difficult not to be distracted by today's events in Japan and South Korea. The England versus Brazil game dominated our morning here and given that we are a British team, emotions amongst the troops ran understandably high. It's sad that England have been knocked out of the World Cup, but my attention is now focused on the German battle against America. Let's see whether the underdogs can do it this time round!"

Pedro de la Rosa

"Quite a normal morning for us. We undertook a tyre evaluation and concentrated on scrubbing tyres for the weekend. The track temperature isn't high enough yet for the tyres to be working at their optimum. In addition, there were some very dark clouds around and I cannot see us getting through the weekend without rain - something that will inevitably make for a harder life around this circuit. I don't mind the new layout and overall, I think it's quite good. It's certainly feels more challenging, but the downside is that we have again sacrificed speed. There are too many slow corners and with our present downforce handicap, it hasn't helped."

Eddie Irvine

"I seem to be suffering from understeer on most parts of the circuit and as suspected, this weekend will be hard on us. The car's behavioural characteristics are not well suited to this track. The tyres seem to be working OK, but we could do with higher temperatures that would allow us to extract more from the tyres. The more rubber that gets laid down, the better too. We did, however, learn a lot through the sessions and we'll build this knowledge into our programme for tomorrow. As for the new layout, I don't like it at all. It's slow and completely unnecessary, in my opinion."

Pedro de la Rosa Position: 14th
Laps: 46
Best time: 1:34.322
Chassis: R3-04
T-Car: R3-06

Eddie Irvine Position: 21st
Laps: 41
Best time: 1:35.579
Chassis: R3-05

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