Irvine praying for rain

The Ulsterman qualified 15th and was outperformed by teammate Pedro de la Rosa, who qualified 13th.

Although both Jaguar's are in mid-grid, all the Michelin runners have struggled in the changing conditions. And even Michelin's front-runners Williams-BMW only managed to qualify eighth and 10th.

"I'm encouraged because we have never been this close to the Williams boys before," said Irvine. "But there's no point in bench-marking our package to the pole position time. The best yardstick of our development has to be the top Michelin runners.

"Nevertheless, I feel quite positive about the package we have right now and since we've proved in the last few races, you can't rule out the chance that we could go quite well.

"But I don't think top six is a possibility. I don't think the Bridgestone runners are going to have enough problems for me to get in the points. But if its wet you never know - what we need is to be very lucky."

However, Jaguar boss Bobby Rahal believes they do have a chance.

"This is the best performance we've had at Silverstone, which as many people know, isn't our favourite circuit," he said. "The Williams cars are usually further up the pecking order, and on that basis, we too would have been further up the grid too.

"We are only one second off them now - quite an improvement when you think back to where we were a few races ago. Scoring points from 13th and 15th place is no easy task, but it's not impossible either."