Jaguar launch 2004 Formula One contender.

By .
January 22 2004

Jaguar has revealed it's 2004 contender, the R5. The team is setting realistic goals, saying that they hope to fight for podiums on occasion, but the main priority is an improvement on 2003..

Team comments:

Head of Aerodynamics, Ben Agethangelou’s comments:

“We have learned so much from last year’s R4 by working in a low-risk, conventional fashion and now that we have the stability within every department of the team it has given us a chance to push really hard and make the R5 an improvement.

“Unlike previous Jaguar Racing F1 cars, the new R5 was finished by the middle of December 2003 but it didn’t actually turn a wheel until mid-January which gave us a whole month to test the systems before it ever went out on the circuit.”

David Pitchforth, Jaguar Racing Managing Director’s comments:

“R5 is the first car that we have been able to design completely from scratch with our new structure in place and our new philosophy of building on what we learned from last season. This car has been started significantly earlier than in the past and is an iteration of a car that we already understand pretty well. The team at Milton Keynes and Northampton did a fantastic job to have the car finished completely on schedule on December 19 and we’ve now got several weeks of intense testing to ready ourselves for Melbourne.”

“We’ve had the same management structure in place for a season now and I believe that having stability and a good team structure is the key to being successful. Everybody involved with the team both in Milton Keynes and Northampton have done a fantastic job of getting the car finished on schedule. Unlike previous Jaguar Racing F1 cars, the new R5 was finished by the middle of December 2003. But it didn’t actually turn a wheel until mid-January, which gave us a whole month to test the systems before it ever went out on the circuit.

“A four-week run in the test and development departments is something we have never enjoyed before and it should allow us to reduce the problems we have when it eventually runs at the race track. Last year we missed out on points because of poor early reliability and we want to rectify that.”

“Even though the 2003 R4 was a step forward compared to its predecessor, we weren’t totally in charge of the company when we began its design. This time what we say goes, which means we have been able to ensure that the R5 is exactly what we want it to be. The design of last year’s car was started very late and we had to freeze its shape very early on in the process to give us time to build it. When it rolled out for the first race in Australia last year it was clear it had good basic pace but over the season, because we didn’t have particularly good testing, we lost some of that ground.

“In contrast, R5 is the first car that we have been able to design completely from scratch with our new structure in place and with our new philosophy of building on what we learnt from last season. This car has been started significantly earlier than in the past and is an iteration of a car that we already understand pretty well. I would never say that we got to grips with every problem on the R4 but one of the things we have resisted doing on R5 is changing things simply because we didn’t understand them. Even if we carry over some of the problems that R4 had, it is better to run something whose quirks you believe you can fix than take a gamble on something new.”

Mark Webber’s comments:

“I think it’s important that we work hard as a team to understand some of the issues that are holding us back and be brave enough to be critical if that’s what it needs. I would love to see my first podium but I wouldn’t be totally distraught if that didn’t happen. Basically we need to see good progression and grab more points than we did in 2003.”