Webber pushes Jag to the limit

Dr Mark Gillan described the Australian's lap as "stunning", but admitted that Jaguar needs to improve the pace it has demonstrated in the past few races.

"Mark had a stunning lap and to be honest, there wasn't much left that he could have extracted," said Gillan. "The qualifying pace of the car has been good for some time now but it was the race pace over the last couple of races that has let us down. I know that the team are working very hard to prepare the cars and it appears to have paid off today."

Webber reckons that he knew he was on for a good lap from the start of the lap. "I knew going into the first corner that the lap had potential," he said. "The car felt very good under braking and as I went through turn two, I looked at my read-out on the steering wheel and saw that I was up on my quickest time from this morning. It was a really nice lap and one that I enjoyed immensely."

Justin Wilson qualified the second Jaguar in 12th position, although he reckoned he could have gone faster given more time in the R4 to adapt to the machine.

"My lap was an improvement on this morning and I am happy although it could have been better," said the Briton. "There was more time in the car and I just needed more time to extract that. There is an awful lot to learn in what has been a short space of time with Jaguar but I am happy with progress to date."