Saturday March 30th, 2002

Ulsterman Eddie Irvine has put the impressive performance of his Jaguar R3 in qualifying for Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix down to an improvement from Michelin more than developments from the team.

Irvine has struggled with the car in the first two races of this season, but will start from 13th on the grid at Interlagos and was full of praise for his French tyre suppliers when he spoke in the paddock after the qualifying hour.

"Michelin have done an amazing job," he said. "They're just incredible. If we didn't have them we would be in our usual positions. We have improved and Michelin have improved and that is why we are a lot further up the grid."

Jaguar introduced some significant improvements to their ailing R3 car at a test in Barcelona last week, and Irvine believes what he now has in Brazil is virtually a new machine.

"The car is so different now," he enthused. "The handling is much more to my liking and really we had the potential to be ninth - but it is so different I never got the maximum out of it.

"We have improved the car a lot too, and you have to look at the other Michelin runners to see where we are. We have moved away from Minardi and we are up there with Toyota."

The team's new wind tunnel is set to come online on Monday and they are due to test some new development parts in time to use them in the next race, at Imola, in two weekends time.

Published at 20:23:34 GMT