Lauda: Jaguar will stick with new car

The team had planned to switch back to the R2 for next month's San Marino Grand Prix if the old car proved quicker than the new one at the Spanish test.

But the R3 narrowly outpaced the R2 today (Friday) and yesterday. Pedro de la Rosa drove both cars on Thursday, with Eddie Irvine joining him today. The Spaniard ended up 0.05sec faster in the R3 than Irvine managed in the R2.

"The performance differential between the two is just not big enough to go on with last year's car," said Lauda.

"Also we cannot afford to spend precious resources on any kind of parallel development, so this is where we are and I am satisfied we have done everything to make sure that our next move is forward."

Whatever the outcome of this week's test, Jaguar was always going to take the R3 to next week's Brazilian GP. If the old car had proved much quicker, the turnaround time to prepare three cars would have been too short to make the Interlagos race.