Jaguar to Redesign R3's Front Wing

Jaguar have gone back to the drawing board to sort out the front wing of their 2002 Formula One car.

The team postponed tests in Spain this week after data revealed a problem, and a spokesman told Reuters on Thursday that the wing would be redesigned. Nav Sidhu said Jaguar had extended a test at Lurcy-Levis in France by another day and had also scheduled a session in Barcelona from Friday to Monday to get to the bottom of the aerodynamic problems.

Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa will drive the first two days and Northern Irishman Eddie Irvine on Sunday and Monday. Jaguar have been testing both the old R2 and new R3 in straight-line speed tests in France to gather essential comparative data to check with figures produced in their wind tunnel in California.

Sidhu said there was no concern about the team being disadvantaged or unready for the opening race of the season in Australia on March 3.

"It will be a redesigned front wing," he said, adding that there would be no need for any additional crash test. "The goal is to exploit the huge weight saving we have made. If we can get the downforce sorted out, the weight loss will manifest itself in speed we didn't have last year."

Proper Jaguar

The R3, hailed as the team's "first proper Jaguar" when it was launched on January 4, is 40 kg lighter than last year's comparatively slow and conservative R2. Sidhu said the car was more adventurous than last year's but admitted it had been "rushed through slightly" to begin testing as early as possible and that the team always knew that some modifications would be needed.

The car is the first by Jaguar's new design team led by American technical director Steve Nichols and chief aerodynamicist Mark Handford. Autosport magazine on Thursday quoted 'high level sources close to the team' as saying that the problems arose after wrong figures were used in wind tunnel calculations.

"This meant that the team finished the work believing that they had made an eight percent improvement whereas they were actually three percent worse off," it said.

The team said on their official website that they were not undertaking 'dramatic' revisions and were confident "the R3's basic concept is sound and that it is a substantial improvement over last year's R2." Ford-owned Jaguar arrived in Formula One with a big publicity splash in 2000 after taking over the Stewart team but have so far failed to match their impressive resources with results.

Irvine, now the oldest driver on the grid, gave them a first podium with third place in Monaco last year but the team finished eighth overall with nine points. Jaguar, who say they still have total backing from Ford since the parent company replaced chief executive Jacques Nasser in October and embarked on major cost-cutting, hope to steer well up the grid this year.