Jaguar hampered by rain

Jaguar Racing's initial preparations for the French Grand Prix were intrerrupted by a sudden rain storm within minutes of in the opening practice session beginning.

Race drivers Mark Webber and Christian Klien postponed their intended runs but test driver Bjorn Wirdheim pressed on to complete his programme. "It was tricky," he said. "Because when we first went out on rain tyres, the rain had actually stopped and in those conditions the tyres quickly overheat."

"So we fitted shallow wets and by the time we got out on those, it was probably even too dry for them. But we had to complete the programme so I stayed on them." He ended the session 17th fastest.

Klien was able to late until later in the session to work on circuit familiarisation and set up and was able to use dry weather tyres at the end. He ended up 14th fastest. Webber and the team decided to postpone beginning their programme until this afternoon.

"We weren't going to find out anything more than we already knew from Bjorn and Christian's runs," said Dr Mark Gillan. "It was a bit frustrating but everyone's in the same boat."

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