Jaguar Unveil New R5 in Barcelona

The Jaguar team expect to make a step forward with their new R5 car unveiled today at Barcelona, but they are not ready to fight the top teams yet, according to their head of aerodynamics Ben Agathangelou.

"I know that R5 will be a better car aerodynamically but we are not ready to take on the big boys," said Agathangelou. "What I am confident about is that we will make a step in that direction and close the gap a little bit more. We can even see where further improvements are going to come from, we just can't get there as quickly as people would like.

"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.

"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."

The Milton Keynes team said the design of the Cosworth-powered R5 chassis started much earlier than in previous years, and they are confident that extra will show in the car's performance.

"Unlike previous Jaguar Racing F1 cars, the new R5 was finished by the middle of December 2003," said managing director David Pitchforth. "But it didn't actually turn a wheel until mid-January, which gave us a whole month to test the systems before it ever went out on the circuit."

The car will be powered by the new Cosworth CR6-V10 engine, which has been designed for the new regulations which will only allow an engine per driver per weekend.

"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," explained Cosworth's technical director Nick Hayes.

"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!"

Australian Mark Webber, who joined the team at the start of last season, and Austrian rookie Christian Klien will drive for Jaguar in 2004.