Irvine Hopes Revised Jaguar Will Have More Bite

Eddie Irvine has a crucial test for his Formula One future this week in a revised car that Jaguar hope will finally bring them up to speed.

The Northern Irishman is in the last year of his contract and, 37 in November, has yet to decide what he will be doing in 2003 even if others are already being talked of for his job. His current Jaguar R3 is sluggish, an underperforming car launched with high hopes but turning out to be seriously flawed.

On Tuesday a revamped version, with a new aerodynamic package, hits the track with two days of straight-line testing at parent company Ford's Lommel circuit in Belgium. Then it will be flown to Spain for Irvine to get his hands on it on Thursday in Barcelona before the following week's British Grand Prix.

"If this car comes out of the box and flies, I'm going to want to stay in Formula One," Irvine said at the weekend's European Grand Prix. "If it doesn't, it doesn't really bode well for the future does it?"

It may not bode well for the future of team principal Niki Lauda either, with Ford seeing little return on their hefty investment.

Lucky Points

Irvine scored three lucky points for Jaguar in Australia, when half the field crashed out on the first lap but since then the team have drawn a blank. He retired after 43 laps on Sunday.

A race winner with Ferrari, he has unfinished business with Jaguar. Silverstone is next on July 7 but Irvine can barely look that far ahead.

"I'm thinking of Barcelona really. Get to Barcelona and then I'll have a better idea about the British Grand Prix," he said.

"I think that everyone's pinning a lot of hopes on it (the revised car). It's the best job we think we've done. We know our history and we know why we've made a balls of this car (the current R3) in a way.

"We think we've done the new package a lot better than the original and on Thursday we will find out if we have achieved our goals. Aerodynamically it is just a night and day difference.

"We are confident that we've done a very good job, considering the amount of time these new guys have been working on it. If they had another two or three months, like everyone had over the winter, we'd do even better. So we're not going to come in now and challenge Williams and stuff like that."

Jaguar launched their new car in January, ahead of most other teams, but initial testing showed there had been a major miscalculation in the wind tunnel the team had been using in California. Technical director Steve Nichols left, a wind tunnel was purchased near the team's Milton Keynes base and key technicians were recruited.

Irvine Optimistic

Irvine said he had to be optimistic that the problems had been tackled, otherwise he might as well go home to Milan and get drunk.

"I'm not thinking about doesn't. I'm thinking will. I'm thinking this package is going to be good, we're going to turn up there (at Silverstone) and surprise people," he said.

"And we're going to enjoy surprising people. If you look where Benetton came from at the beginning of last year to where they ended up, we have the potential to achieve that.

"We've just got to be optimistic. There's no point in saying 'Oh, well, we've got to be cautious, it may not be that good'...I'm going to Barcelona hoping it's going to be good and we'll see."