Irvine: Still a lot of work to do

Irvine was only ninth fastest in this morning's first practice session, with a lap time of 1.55.242.

'I had to oversteer and understeer and I was locking the front and rear brakes.

'I concentrated on working for the race, but to be honest we made very little progress and I think the was actually worse at the end of the session than at the beginning.

'At the end, I tried a new set of tyres, but I did not push as hard as I want to save them for tomorrow.'

Meanwhile, Mika Salo said his car had made progress. He put in a time of 1.55.032 overall this morning, with put him eighth, one place ahead of his team-mate.

'We had a good test last week and the high-speed running I did at Mugello has helped me a lot.

'We improved the car throughout today's session, including the last run where it got even better.

'So far it looks okay. But there are still some parts of the track where the car could be better, so we must find the right compromise for tomorrow.

'I am not worried about my lap time today, as everyone is working on different programmes.'