Leisel Jones pictured herself as a black Ferrari, put her foot on the accelerator and raced to a new world 200m breaststroke record in Brisbane.

Jones powered to the wall in 2 minutes:22.96 seconds to slice 0.03s off the old world mark and set herself up as a target for the rest of the world going into next month's Athens Olympics.

The 18-year-old was in disbelief after her world record swim, logged during a week of heavy training.

"That's quite a shock," she said.

"We're in stacks of training. I can't begin to explain to you how much hard training we've been doing. It's hard to imagine what times are possible (in future).

"I'd like to see what I can do rested.

"To tell you the truth, it didn't even hurt that much. It was sort of one of those ... races where everything just happened. I just set my mind really clear, just really relaxed and just tried to hold it that way." Jones went into the historic swim imagining herself as a sports car.

"Not putting any plugs out there or anything but I tried to picture a black Ferrari," she said.

"I tried to think of a car and just shift into gears - first gear on the first lap, second gear on second lap, third and fourth gear on the third lap and fifth gear on the way back.

"It obviously worked." Jones now holds both the 100 and 200m breaststroke records going into her second Olympics.

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