Franchitti: Jag test will help with CART campaign...

Franchitti completed a one-day test with the Jaguar squad last July at Silverstone, driving the car during a flying visit to the UK between CART races, but the uncompetitiveness of the Big Cat's R1 meant the 27-year-old lapped considerably off the pace.

However, Franchitti believes the experience was not all bad and that the test in fact helped to improve his driving.

"A Champ Car has a lot more grip," he said, "but an F1 car is a lot lighter so it changes direction a lot quicker. A Champ Car is more powerful, but driving the F1 car helped me to learn some things that actually helped me with driving in Champ Cars, so it was a good experience."

Jaguar team boss Bobby Rahal recently praised Franchitti, saying he was one of the few drivers who could race wheel-to-wheel with former CART rival Juan Pablo Montoya - the pair tied on points for the 1999 Champ Car crown with Montoya winning on number of victories.

Rahal also pointed out that if Franchitti is intent on following his erstwhile adversary into F1, he must make the jump sooner rather than later and that this year could be his last chance. However, the Team Green driver insists his focus currently lies elsewhere.

"I'm completely involved in my Champ Car racing at the moment," he said. "We're only one race into the season and there are 21 still to go, so there is really nothing to talk about with F1.

"Bobby said some nice things about me and it was very nice of him to do that, but as far as anything for the future, there's really nothing to say..."