First points for Jaguar
Jaguar Racing has opened its 2003 account at the fifth time of asking with Mark Webber making up ground from being delayed at the first corner to finish in seventh place. The two points move the team up to ninth place in the constructors' table, as Toyota also collected points for the first time in 2003
It was a case of good and bad, though, as what might have been Antonio Pizzonia's last race in the second car failed to get off the line.
Managing Director David Pitchforth said that it was a day of mixed emotions: "It's great to have finally been rewarded for all of our hard work. Mark did a tremendous job today and, had he not been boxed in going into the first corner, he would have been evenm higher. Nonetheless, we came into this weekend with reliability in mind and coupled with the car's competitiveness we leave Barcelona very pleased, albeit we need to understand what happened to Antonio. We spent three days at Mugello last week working on various things including launch control and we experienced no issues, until today."
Webber was thrilled to be rewarded at last: "I'm delighted with the result and to take the two points back to the workforce is just reward for their hard work. I made a good start and was trying to get on the inside of Frentzen into the first corner. I then got inside Villeneuve going into Turn 2, but then I satrted seeing dust from Trulli and Coulthard's incident. I had no choice but to take to the gravel, but then I was worried about hitting Coulthard who was bouncing about in front of me. We've clearly taken some positive steps since Imola. The aim now is to capitalise on today's data with three days of testing at Paul Ricard."
Pizzonia was crestfallen at not having the chance to let his driving prove his doubters wrong: "I'm very disappointed. I think we covered more mileage over the past two days than anyone. With that in mind, it's very unfortunate not to have taken advantage of that in the race. Quite simply, the launch control system failed, exactly as it did in Imola."
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