Irvine Endures Another Disastrous Qualifying

Eddie Irvine spent most of last season yearning for a faster and sleeker Jaguar but on Saturday he saw the old Formula One car in a more flattering light.

The winner of the first Malaysian Grand Prix with Ferrari in 1999 wrestled his new R3 car to 20th place on the grid for Sunday's race at Sepang and looked back with considerable nostalgia.

"We tried some revised bits and pieces but to be honest, our problem is much bigger than that," declared the Northern Irishman in a team statement. "Last year, I qualified two seconds faster here and that would have meant seventh position on the grid today.

"I'm not saying we should have come here with R2 but it goes some way to justifying the reason for doing the comparison test next week and taking it from there."

Jaguar boss Niki Lauda said on Friday that the Ford-owned team would take both cars, old and new, to Barcelona next week for a head-to-head test to determine the best strategy for the next few races.

Lauda said the R3, seriously flawed aerodynamically, could be set aside for further development with the old car brought back with modifications for the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola in April.

"We need to find a way out of this quite fast," said Irvine, who finished fourth in Australia two weeks ago after a freakish race that dumped nearly half the grid out of the running in a first-corner pile-up.

"Next week is critical to our season and everybody is working to the limit now in an effort to break through this difficult issue."

Arrows Rub it In

A further indication of Jaguar's problems was provided by Arrows, who are using the same Cosworth engine as a client of the Milton Keynes team. Arrows qualified their two cars ahead of both Jaguars, with German Heinz-Harald Frentzen well over a second quicker than Irvine in 11th place and Brazilian Enrique Bernoldi in 16th.

Even then, Arrows technical director Mike Coughlan declared that "we're still not getting all the speed we could out of the A23."

Irvine said he might have squeezed a fraction more out of the car had he not been blocked by Frenchman Olivier Panis but he was not in the mood for excuses.

"I couldn't do any more out there," he said. "When you are fighting for positions at the back of the grid, I can't say it makes a massive difference. I am finding it very hard to get to grips with this car. Pedro (de la Rosa) has done a better job with it and that's probably down to his style of driving.

"I like carrying speed through the corners and this car isn't conducive to my approach into corners."

In a brutally honest assessment, Lauda said the qualifying positions were "representative of what the car is capable of at this time.

"We still haven't unravelled the mystery that is R3," he declared. "I very much doubt that half the field will retire tomorrow, as was the case in Melbourne. We will therefore aim to generate as much data as possible from the race."