Jaguar Boss Promises Improvements

After a very disappointing debut season this year, Jaguar boss Neil Ressler has promised his team will do a lot better in 2001, and also admitted they would have no excuse if they fail again.

Jaguar, with one of the biggest budgets in Formula One, scored only four points in their first year after taking over the Stewart team, which had finished the 1999 season in fourth place in the Constructors' Championship.

Ressler, who believes that their slow start was to blame for their bad results, thinks that will not happen again.

"We got off to a slow start this year," Ressler said. "We had a relatively ineffective pre-season testing programme, and fell behind. Things move so fast in F1 that recovering from that during the season is a very difficult task.

"For next year we have concentrated very much on what we can do to have a more effective pre-season. We've done a great many things already, and we'll do more to make sure that we are much better prepared.

"I would say that there would be no excuse that even we could believe, never mind anybody else, that would justify a season next year like this one."

The Milton Kaynes-based team has undergone a lot of changes for next season, and is currently rumoured to be trying to replace key members of their staff by luring them from other teams, something that Ressler considered as normal.

"You're not likely to be successful by shopping at the F1 unemployment office and hiring people who can't find a job anywhere else," he added.