Irvine: Something Still Wrong with the Jaguar

Ulsterman Eddie Irvine said on Saturday that the introduction of a heavily-modified Jaguar car at Silverstone this weekend has failed to find a solution to a crucial set-up problem which has hampered them all season.

Jaguar had pinned their hopes on the revised R3 machine, which includes an all-new aerodynamic package and rear suspension, but were left in 19th and 21st places on the grid for Sunday's British Grand Prix.

The new package is understood to provide significant gains in downforce and has created a much more stable and driveable car, but Irvine claimed that it has not got down to the crux of the problem.

"We thought this would have got rid of the problem, but it didn't," he said. "We will just have to keep plugging away and see what happens. God loves a trier. I see the progress we have made.

"We have a hell of a lot more downforce, a better balanced car, but still, we never found the lap time we should have found considering the amount of downforce we put on it.

"That says something else is wrong, so we have got to go looking for that now, and when we fix it we should have a big step forward. It's like a treasure hunt - find one clue and then go off to find the next one."

Despite his disappointing lap time, Irvine insisted the new machine has been a "very dramatic" improvement as he called for more time to improve its set-up before assessing the success of the new developments.

And Irvine fended off suggestions that current team chief Niki Lauda could be ousted if the car continues to suffer problems by suggesting the time was needed to recover following the reign of former boss Bobby Rahal.

"To bring it back from there is not the easiest thing in the world to do," Irvine said. "If you sack your most experienced person and one of your best people you just can't recover that sort of experience overnight.

"We have got two very good aero guys brought in but apart from them there is still a big hole in experience and, you know, we are suffering from that."