Jaguar Drivers Reserve Judgement on R3B

Jaguar drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Eddie Irvine were unable to judge the performance of the revised R3B that is making its racing debut this weekend.

Friday's free practice session for the British Grand Prix was hit by a heavy rain that hampered their progress and having driven the revised car for only 15 laps in the dry at Barcelona last week, Irvine was unable to say how good the car is.

"Obviously today we would have liked to get some miles in and get a proper feel for it but we weren't lucky in that respect," said Irvine, who was 15th quickest. "It's impossible to know what the story is. We got it for Barcelona, I only did 15 laps with it.

"It was better in some areas, but there were a few issues with it. We haven't had a chance to really do any set-up work with it because it means running the car in a totally different way and we haven't done any running.

Spaniard de la Rosa was 13th fastest, but like his teammate he was unable to give a verdict on the new car, although the Jaguar driver claimed he felt the car was already an improvement.

"A very frustrating start to our British Grand Prix, but it's the same for everyone today," said de la Rosa. "The track isn't allowing us to really push the car to the limits and because of this, we are not in a position to make conclusions about the new aero package.

"There are certainly some improvements that can already be felt, but we need to understand the package a lot better and this will only happen in dry conditions."