Jaguar R3 better balanced?

A typically dusty and slippery track made for difficult driving conditions yesterday as the Jaguar Racing team prepared for the third round of the 2002 FIA Formula One World Championship at the Interlagos circuit in Sao Paulo.

The first of Friday's two, hour-long practice sessions gave Eddie Irvine and Pedro de la Rosa their first chance of the weekend to drive the Jaguar R3 alongside their rivals, but a very dusty track made conditions less than ideal for pushing hard - as many other drivers found out to their cost.

Both Jaguar Racing drivers spent the first session working through the usual Friday checklist of set-up options and used the second session to concentrate mainly on tyre compounds.

Niki Lauda, Team Principal said: "The car seems better balanced but we are still suffering from a lack of aerodynamic grip. Both drivers worked through a usual Friday programme and apart from a mechanical glitch on Pedro's car that caused him to spin at the end, there wasn't anything that troubled us too much. Eddie worked through a programme of set-up options, but we still have more to focus on tomorrow [Saturday] before qualifying. There has certainly been some improvement on the R3 since Malaysia, but there's a lot of unanswered questions which we are addressing as part of our on-going development programme."

Pedro de la Rosa, who finished the day tenth fastest added: "We achieved a fair amount of work and undertook some pretty major changes on the mechanical side. The bumps at this circuit are a big problem and we made adjustments to the suspension settings in an effort to find the car's optimum balance. In the end, we found a reasonable set-up, but not perfect. I couldn't make the most of my new set of tyres because I suffered from a mechanical problem that caused me to spin towards the end of the second session. Overall, however, we have more mechanical grip here compared to the last two races and I'm sure we'll improve the set-up before qualifying."

His team-mate Eddie Irvine who was slightly slower in 14th continued: "The car has definitely improved in handling terms. I'm suffering from some high-speed understeer, but that shouldn't be too difficult to dial out. The Michelin tyres are working very well as I expected, but it was hard to push the limit during the first session because of how slippery the track was. Nonetheless, we've learned more about the package today and we've just got to keep going. Our main problems are aero-related and the changes we undertook between sessions made some difference to the car's balance. It's hard, however, at this stage to predict where we'll qualify, but given that we are nearly a second and a half slower than last year, I think we might struggle again. Until we make some fundamental steps forward on the aero side, we can't realistically hope for any better at this stage. With our new windtunnel on-line from next Tuesday and a new Head of Aerodynamics starting in four weeks, I'm sure we'll start seeing some significant progress soon."