Spanish GP Friday Jaguar notes

Jaguar Racing looks forward to qualifying after uneventful first day in Spain

Irvine: "We've got to focus on improving traction" Friday was a fairly quiet and uneventful day for Jaguar Racing, for like everyone else in the pitlane the team was in no hurry to pile up the laps and use valuable sets of tyres. However, by the end of the day Johnny Herbert and Eddie Irvine had done 51 laps between them and, most importantly, they encountered no major gremlins.

By sticking to a single set of tyres each, Johnny and Eddie slipped down the order while some of their rivals tried a new set of rubber near the end of the day. They eventually ended up in 13th and 15th places respectively, but the true picture will not emerge until Saturday's qualifying.

Eddie was particularly disappointed with the traction of the R1, which was not as good as at the recent test.

"A fairly predictable Friday at Barcelona," said Irvine, who used the R1-04 chassis today. "I tried a new front wing this morning and although it didn't provide instant, dramatic improvement, we definitely got some direction from it. Overall, I was disappointed with the car's handling relative to the test we had here. We've got to focus on improving traction ahead of qualifying."

Johnny was pleased to get a solid day's work in after having problems during the Friday session at several grands prix this year.

"We delayed our first run, like everybody else, until the track had become user-friendly," said Johnny. "The recent rain had made it a little 'green' and it was not the same surface we were on during the test last week. We didn't really learn too much on set-up, but I am reasonably happy with the start that we have made to the race weekend."

Technical director Gary Anderson said he was satisfied with the day's work. "We undertook a bit of set-up work to improve the balance of the car, but it was a fairly uneventful day. We could do with finding more speed, so we'll just have to put a new battery in the stop watch!"