Jaguar R5 to run on Monday

Team boss David Pitchforth has confirmed that Jaguar's 2004 car is an evolution of last year's R4, and that it will feature a traditional nose. The R5 is due to be finished today (Saturday) before it is taken to Lommel in Belgium for three days of running next week prior to its official launch on January 18. The R5 has been finished on time and under budget.

"It [the R5] is an evolution focusing carefully on areas that needed attention," said Pitchforth. "This is an all-new car but has lineage to its predecessors. Everything changed on the car is based on fact."

Mark Webber put in a string of impressive qualifying performances in 2004, but wasn't always able to repeat the performance come the race. Pitchforth wants that to change in 2004.

"We need to show continuous improvement and we have got to convert our qualifying performance into keeping that performance in the race," he said. "If we do that then we will be higher up the running order in the race and we will get more points. There are some other wrinkles in that because the rules have changed and that is another area.

"Changing the rules stirs everything up which spreads the guys out. If you want to bunch the grid up then keep the rules the same so it is swings and roundabouts as far as getting an interesting grid, you might get an interesting grid in terms of the one engine rule but it might have been better for us if it had all stayed the same."