New Jaguar R5 to Run on Monday

Jaguar's 2004 Formula One car has passed mandatory crash tests and will make its track debut in Belgium on Monday, the team have announced.

"The R5 has passed all crash tests for the season," spokesman Nav Sidhu said on Saturday.

Australian Mark Webber will give the new car a basic straight line test at the Lommel facility before three days of off-track stress-testing, followed by the formal launch at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya on Jan 18.

Jaguar managing director David Pitchforth told the Autosport website that the R5 was an evolution of the 2003 car with a traditional nose, unlike the new Williams FW26.

Richard Parry-Jones, the Ford executive with overall responsibility for the Jaguar team, told Saturday's Times newspaper that the car had been produced on time and on budget but warned that the sport must curb lavish spending.

"We are no longer into having an opulent motorhome," he declared. "There is no money in the budget for that sort of bullshit. Everything we have we spend on the car. It's not sensible in the long term to try to buy your way to the front of the grid.

"Most observers of the sport believe the cost escalation cannot be continued," he added. "Formula One is going to have to find a way of putting on a spectacle without consuming too much of the customers' money. If we don't, we are heading for a cliff."

Jaguar finished last season in seventh place and have signed Austrian rookie Christian Klien, who comes with hefty sponsorship, to partner Webber this year.