Friday March 1st, 2002

Spanish driver Pedro de la Rosa was pleasantly surprised with the handling of his Jaguar R3 after Friday's practice for the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

The new Cosworth-powered R3 struggled during pre-season testing and Jaguar were even forced to go back to the drawing board after the team discovered a problem with the design of the front wing.

But after setting the 14th fastest time today, de la Rosa said the car felt better than he had expected before the first Grand Prix of the season.

"The car felt very good both in wet and dry conditions," said de la Rosa, who suffered a transmission problem in the second session. "Overall, the package is better than what we expected. Compared to how the car felt at the last test in Silverstone a week ago, we have certainly taken another step forward in development.

"It would have been nice to have done some laps at the end with a new set of tyres and consequently the lap times aren't worth reading into. Tomorrow is a different story and we'll see exactly where we stand relative to our immediate competition."

Teammate Eddie Irvine shared de la Rosa's views on the Michelin-shod car, the Irishman setting the 17th quickest time of the day.

"I am pleasantly surprised with the car," said Irvine. "It seems very well balanced, but we need to extract more speed from it. It's the first time this year that the car has handled that well. The challenge now is finding the speed."

Published at 05:46:23 GMT