By Vicki Mabbott
July 28 2002

It seems it was too much to ask for Jag's apparent return to form in France to last into a second week. On a day when even the cars with good mechanical and aerodynamic grip struggled to stay on the newly re-laid track, the Jag drivers had their work cut out for them battling an understeer problem. Eddie Irvine was disappointed to be back to his more usual mid to rear grid placing and lines up in 16th place for the German Grand Prix. "The car was suffering from mid-corner understeer throughout the whole session and it's a surprise given how good it felt this morning," he explained "Starting from 16th place isn't the ideal scenario and we'll have to work even harder now at getting the maximum from this package in race trim.".

Pedro de la Rosa was 4 places behind his team-mate and has excused this by blaming his choice of tyres for the race which was different to Irvine's. "“I chose a different tyre compound to Eddie and knew it was a risky decision to take. The gamble didn't pay off in the end, but I think we'll make up for it in the race tomorrow."

Pedro is expecting some surprises (anyone else wondering at the contradiction in terms there?) during the race and hopes to capitalise on them. "This is quite a challenging track and combined with the slippery surface, I think tomorrow's race will throw up a few surprises which we will be looking to capitalise on." A good idea from Pedro, but of course assumes Jaguar wont be among the "surprises", which given recent reliability issues would be unsurprising.