Business as usual at Jaguar

Eddie Irvine split the Jordans to snatch seventh place on the grid for Jaguar but reckoned he could have taken fifth and won the unofficial battle to be 'best of the rest' behind McLaren and Ferrari.

But it was another disaster story for his unfortunate team mate Johnny Herbert, who sits 17th after a cracked exhaust drained power from his engine.

Irvine continued his string of strong qualifying performances having started sixth and seventh for the opening two days of the season.

'I thought I could have been fifth today but I am not complaining too much because the car obviously works well around here,' he said.

'I'm a little disappointed I have to say because I ran wide a couple of times and that cost me maybe three-tenths which would have been enough for fifth.

'It's tight where I am on the grid so the race should be quite a tussle.'

Herbert was only 1.1s slower than his team mate but that equates to ten places on the starting grid.

'We had a cracked exhaust at the start of the session and things just got worse and worse and by the time I did my run it was totally flat,' he explained. 'At least we've got a good balance for the race.'

Irvine crashed out of the first two races of the season and Herbert had mechanical problems on both occasions, so team boss Paul Stewart is simply hoping his cars reach the end of the race at Imola.

'It sounds like a mantra but we've got to finish the race and if we can do that we can sore points,' he said.