Wing failure costs Jaguar chance of points

Irvine was just preparing to brake for the Adelaide hairpin when his rear wing broke, sending him into a dizzying spin into the gravel and out of the race.

"That probably looked a lot more spectacular than it actually felt from inside the car," said Irvine. "All I remember feeling is that the rear of the car just snapped at what must have been around 310kph [185mph]. Luckily it happened at the best place to have a failure on this circuit and the car simply slid into the gravel."

Irvine was on course for sixth place, as Renault's Jenson Button was running an unusual three-stop strategy and still had a stop to make. Irvine did, however, set one result on the timesheets, as his wingless car was doing 196kph through the first sector timing beam, almost 50kph up on the opposition.

"We have demonstrated some encouraging signs of a turnaround here this weekend," he added. "Despite the fact we still have a few issues to address, we are moving in the right direction."

Irvine's team-mate Pedro de la Rosa, who was delayed in a first corner tangle between Olivier Panis (BAR) and Takuma Sato (Jordan), was called in to the pits to have his rear wing checked. He rejoined to finish ninth.