Grapevine: De la Rosa Tipped for Jaguar Test Drive

Pedro de la Rosa is on the verge of tearing up his testing contract with Prost in favour of joining the Jaguar team.

Stories have been circulating that, unimpressed with Irvine's comments on their new R2, the Jaguar team would sack the Irishman and bring de la Rosa on board. A Jaguar spokesman has denied this, but did not rule out de la Rosa's chances of joining the team.

"We have not sacked Eddie Irvine," said the spokesperson, but with regards to the De La Rosa rumours, he added: "You can expect an announcement imminently."

Irvine has heavily and very publicly criticised the new Jaguar R2 as "too slow", and it was suggested that his accusations had pushed the team over the edge.

However, it is expected that he will continue to race for the team in 2001, and that de la Rosa will join the team in a test driver capacity with a view to replacing Irvine in 2002.

De la Rosa only signed as a test-driver for Prost last month after being released by Arrows. He is now set to work alongside Jaguar's other test-driver Tomas Scheckter this year.