[Raceboy]

Irvine cautious about new Jaguar.

Eddie Irvine adopted a wait-and-see policy at today's Milton Keynes launch of the new Jaguar R3 Formula One car - the Ulsterman confident the car would be quicker than last season's R2, but not willing to make any predictions as to how close to the ultimate pace the new car would be.

"I'm not going to say right now that the car is fantastic, because if you do that and you are 20th on the grid you look a plonker," said 36-year-old Irvine. "I'd rather just wait and see, but for sure it's better than last year's car. It's just too early to say exactly where we're at."

"The car is better in all the right areas. Between 2000 and 2001 the c-of-g [centre of gravity] went up and the aero went down, and the car went slower - which is what you'd expect. Between last year and this year the c-of-g has gone down, the weight has gone down, the power has gone up, and the downforce and efficiency have gone up - all the things which ought to make the car go quicker."

"We're still working on what went wrong with last year's car. We're going to be running an R2 at the next test, because we think we've finally figured out what was going on with it."

"I'm sure the new car will be quicker - but how quick against other people we have to wait and see."