Irvine plays down German chances

Due to the high speed similarities between the Hockenheimring and Monza, seven teams spent four days at the Italian track working on low downforce set-ups.

Despite a recent improvement in the Jaguar team's form, the Big Cat is still struggling to leap forward in qualifying. Poor grid positions continue to hamper the progress of Irvine and team mate Pedro de la Rosa in races.

The Milton-Keynes based team therefore spent a lot of time at Monza making the R2 perform well in qualifying trim and its efforts clearly paid off. Irvine and de la Rosa were first and second fastest on Thursday and Irvine was top again on Friday.

Despite the testing pace however, the Ulsterman is not overly optimistic about his team's chances in Germany.

"We know we have to qualify better, as our race pace is very good," said Irvine. "But I'm only cautiously optimistic that we will be able to do that in Hockenheim. Our result there will depend as much on what others do as on what we can do ourselves."

Team boss Bobby Rahal also believes the relentless pace at which Formula 1 teams develop makes it very hard to move forward when a team is coming from behind. Nevertheless, points are the order of the day in Germany.

"Everybody around us is developing their cars constantly and pushing very hard in the days between testing and racing," said Rahal. "The nature of this pace makes it even harder to play catch-up. More race points would make for a well-deserved reward for the team's hard work."