Irvine worried by practice performance

The Ulsterman was left scratching his head in 16th place after a mystery handling problem from testing returned to plague his Ferrari race machine throughout the first day's practice.

Team-mate Mika Salo was equally slow, in 17th, while title rivals Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard were fifth and eighth respectively.

'The car was not feeling anything like as good as it was in the test.

'It was bad for the first day of the test. It came good for the last one and half hours of the test but has gone again.

'We are working hard to understand why it is difficult now.

'When the car feels good I am not worried, but when it is not I am worried.'

Luckily, today's times do not count towards grid positions and Irvine is praying Ferrari engineers - who had their knuckled rapped by Ferrari team president Luca di Montezemolo over the uncompetitiveness of the car at the last race - can solve their problems overnight.