San Marino Jaguar race notes

There was little consolation for Jaguar Racing as Eddie Irvine was forced to retire from the San Marino Grand Prix on lap 44 with an engine failure while running in 9th position. Luciano Burti drove yet another solid race to bring his Jaguar R2 home in 11th place although the young Brazilian had to drive around a gearbox problem during the race. The result is all the more disappointing for the team as the one stop strategy it had chosen for both drivers looked likely to promote them closer to the points scoring positions. The team now moves to Silverstone in the UK for a three-day test in preparation for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Eddie Irvine
"What can I say? I had a good start despite carrying a heavy fuel load. The one stop strategy I was on was absolutely right for the race conditions and I was making good progress through the field and pushing hard for what I believed would be a points finish. The R2 felt well balanced throughout the race and the understeer problems I suffered from yesterday were not as apparent. Again we have come so close yet remain so far. There is no miracle overnight cure and we will continue to push hard on the development of this car."

Luciano Burti
"I think we had the best strategy today but I was handicapped by a gearshift problem for the whole race which meant I couldn't downshift cleanly and attack the corners. I had to drive carefully as I was running wide in the corners. I managed to get past Alesi after his second pit stop but soon after this I lost first, second and third gears which is a real shame as the basic balance of the car was good but I was losing too much time with the gearshift problem."

Bobby Rahal
"It's too bad. Clearly we had the right strategy today and it was looking good for Eddie. He was on a one- stopper and our strategy looked as if it would pay dividends. Unfortunately Eddie's race came to a premature end on lap 44 because of an engine failure that surprised us as we were not using the new series three version that we ran in qualifying yesterday. Both Eddie and Luciano were using series two versions of the Cosworth CR3 and we have been using this engine all season with very few problems indeed. Luciano drove another solid race, but was hampered by a gearshift problem. I guess every team can lay claim to some loss of reliability at some stage in the season and it's obviously our turn this weekend. We've got a lot of work to do."

-Jaguar