Irvine Unhappy with R3's 'Poor Handling'

Eddie Irvine claimed the Jaguar team have a tough fight on their hands at the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend, the Irishman admitting he was far from happy with the handling of his R3 chassis.

"The car is very difficult to drive," admitted Irvine after posting the eleventh quickest time in today's practice session. "We know this circuit very well, but that doesn't change the fact that we are exposed because of our aerodynamic weaknesses.

"The handling is very poor and as was the case in Imola, we have a tough fight on our hands this weekend."

Team boss Niki Lauda, as well as Pedro de la Rosa, have admitted that the Milton Keynes squad face a few hard races before the result of their work in their new wind tunnel starts paying dividends for them.

The ill-handling R3 chassis continued to give both Irvine and teammate de la Rosa a hard time today at Barcelona, and the Ulsterman is not expecting anything to change soon.

"Qualifying will not generate any surprises and unless there's a high retirement rate on Sunday, I'm afraid it's more of the same until we find an aerodynamic solution," said Irvine after practice.

"In the past, we have suffered without our own windtunnel and given the new team of aerodynamicists who have recently joined us, I am optimistic about cracking this problem. It will not happen overnight and we are aiming for our home race at Silverstone which is about ten weeks away."

De la Rosa, who joined the Jaguar team one year ago and who competes in his 50th Grand Prix this weekend, finished the session in 19th place.