Jaguar aims for race pace

With this being the approach, Mark Webber was satisfied with 12th place on the grid and Antonio Pizzonia a little disappointed with 16th, but both feel that they have a good chassis set-up for the race as the team chases after the first points of its campaign.

"Today has been good in terms of running and track time," said Dr Mark Gillan, Head of Vehicle Performance. "Both drivers have focussed on building a race set-up which, given the tyre and set-up choice, has compromised slightly our qualifying performance."

Webber was also aware of the compromise: "Between qualifying set-up and race set-up, you have no choice but to make a trade-off. In our case, we've focussed on the race. I was actually aiming for a top-10 today, but the somewhat higher track temperature worked against us."

Pizzonia was clearly sliding around a little: "I suffered from a balance shift problem with my car. It appears that many teams were suffering from this problem. But, with a clever strategy, you can never rule out a points challenge if you cross the finishing line in this race."