Friday October 11th, 2002

Jaguar driver Eddie Irvine has played down his impressive time in today's free practice for the Japanese Grand Prix.

Both Briton Irvine and Jaguar teammate Pedro de la Rosa made a promising start to the weekend after posting the seventh and eighth places respectively, albeit two seconds off the pace set by Finn Kimi Raikkonen in the Mercedes-powered McLaren.

Irvine, who could be competing in his final race with the Milton Keynes team, remained cautious despite his time and said he expected to endure a tough weekend.

"The lap times look impressive but I think we're in for a hard weekend at this circuit," admitted the Irishman. "The first session was quite tough, particularly with a lack of rear grip. I was losing time in places that I normally wouldn't expect to, but the team made some positive changes to the car in time for the second session.

"Because of Montoya's crash in the second session, I missed out on completing my tyre work – something we'll address tomorrow morning during warm-up. Qualifying well is so important at Suzuka because of the overtaking difficulties and from looking at today's lap times, I think our group is going to be very tight indeed."

Published at 07:09:28 GMT