Jaguar boss: R5 a step forward

Pitchforth was encouraged by the qualifying performances of Mark Webber last year, and says if it can turn that form into race pace in 2004, it will allow the team to score more heavily. Webber finished ninth in the drivers' championship last year, after scoring points on seven occasions, but Jaguar slipped to seventh in the constructors' title race in the final few races of the season.

"It is bloody hard to be a regular race winner, and we think the R5 will be a step on that journey," said Pitchforth. "We need to get the reliability and then also start to be able to understand the car, which is why we have not made this a revolution. If we were to look at our qualifying performance, Mark [Webber]'s was average third best driver on Fridays and if we could have done that in the race then we'd have scored more points, but we didn't and we have got to tackle that.

"The Jaguar R5 is the first car that we have been able to design completely from scratch with our new management structure in place and with our new philosophy of building on what we learnt from last season. This car has been started significantly earlier than in the past and is an iteration of a car that we already understand pretty well and a car that had many strengths.

"I would never say that we got to grips with every problem on last year's but one of the things we have resisted doing on R5 is changing things simply because we didn't understand them. Even if we carry over some of the problems that R4 had, it is better to run something whose quirks you believe you can fix than take a gamble on something new."

Tony Purnell, the boss of the Premier Performance Division that oversees Jaguar, believes the team is more effective than ever as the 2004 season approaches.

"This is a good little company now," said Purnell. "I have said several times that we are only 35 percent of the way to where we would really like to be. David has done a terrific job, he has got absolutely the right personality and attitude at the moment, and what is best is that people are beginning to enjoy working here and if you have got that then you have got a lot going for you.

"I am really confident that this car is quicker than the R4, I am very worried that maybe we make half a second and everybody else has made one second and we are tail-end charlies. But I am sure that this is a fair bit quicker."