Italian GP Friday Jaguar notes

Friday was a good day for Jaguar Racing, with Eddie Irvine setting an encouraging sixth fastest time in the second free practice session. Irvine was using new tyres, but even allowing for that the R1 showed considerable improvement over the form it showed in testing.

"We've found a lot of time from the test," said Eddie, "but I don't know where! As long as it keeps coming, I'll be happy. The car didn't feel bad at the test, but we were just slow. Here it doesn't feel bad, but we just have to wait until tomorrow to see where we are."

I was the first time Eddie had driven at Monza in anger since the track was reprofiled. "This is a very difficult circuit, and I don't really like the chicanes," he said. "The first one is not bad, because the kerbs are reasonable, but the second chicane is still a place where the car really gets thrown all over the place. You've got to compromise the set-up a lot because of them. But it's pretty much the same as before, except the first chicane is a little bit easier. Although it's very difficult to get the car stopped in time."

Technical director Gary Anderson was pleased with the way the session went. "We found improvement in some areas from the test here last week which is encouraging," he said. "We still have some work to do to improve the balance of the car and achieve consistency over the entire lap. If we can fix the handling through Lesmo and over the kerbs in general we'll be in the hunt. Eddie ran new tyres at the end of the second session to give us a direction but he was already running a good Friday pace.