Jag's 'refined' R5 design

As the new car was launched in Barcelona in Spain today (Sunday), Agathangelou explained the shift in philosophy following mistakes made in the past.

"We have learnt so much from last year's R4 by working in a low-risk, conventional fashion and now that we have stability within every department of the team it has given us a chance to push really hard to make the new R5 an improvement," he said. "It has been an education for me because it's the first time we have had a car that we trust and understand pretty well. That has meant that we could refine and evolve it rather than take a few risks, which is what we had to do in the past."

Engine partner Cosworth has also been working hard to ensure that its new CR6 unit is ready for the one-engine-per-weekend rule that comes into effect from Melbourne.

Nick Hayes, Cosworth Racing's technical director, said: "The CR6-V10 engine is a development of last year's engine, so it remains a 90-degree V10, but we have new longer-life requirements in 2004 thanks to the rule that means we can only use one engine over a whole Grand Prix weekend. Previously an engine would last for 450-500km but now we expect engines to have to survive for around 800km so we've been doing a lot of work on the CR6 to extract the best performance but at the right life.

"A lot of the components in a 2003 engine wouldn't last for much more than a race, let alone a whole weekend, so much of our recent work was seeing how we can extend the lifespan without hurting performance. It will certainly be a challenging season for all engines on the grid!"