De la Rosa Pins Hopes on Jaguar Reliability

Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa is hoping for reliability at Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix to score his first points of the 2002 season.

The Jaguar driver enjoyed an encouraging start of his weekend after posting the 11th quickest time with the car from the struggling Milton Keynes-based outfit. De la Rosa, who concentrated mainly on choosing the Michelin tyres for Sunday's race, was pleased with his progress and hoping his car stays reliable in the race.

"I'm quite pleased with today's programme, particularly the tyre evaluation," said de la Rosa. "We did some long runs with heavy fuel loads to check brake wear and tyre blistering â€" none of which proved to be a problem.

"I am approaching this race with an open mind and as long as we have reliability on our side, there is always a chance to fight for points. With that in mind, we are doing everything we can to ensure that we have a capable and bulletproof package in place for Sunday."

Teammate Eddie Irvine, who has scored Jaguar's only points this year with a fourth place at the Australian Grand Prix, finished down in 17th place. The Ulsterman was happy with his Michelin tyres but refused to read too much into Jaguar's performance today.

"The Michelin tyres are working very well and Sunday's race should prove to be quite an interesting spectacle," he said. "We have made small gains here with some set-up options that we are trying and we'll continue to work on these tomorrow morning before qualifying.

"Nonetheless, the Friday practice times are never worth reading into too much and while our weekend has started well, the real test is yet to come."