Pizzonia will race in Spain

Stories had surfaced at the San Marino Grand Prix that he would be shown the door for failing to get close to the pace of his team-mate Mark Webber either in qualifying or any of the four races so far this season. However, for this race at least, the Formula 1 rookie appears to have hung on. Indeed, today's confirmation from Jaguar Racing Managing Director David Pitchforth scotches rumours that McLaren's third driver Alexander Wurz would move across with immediate effect. Both Anthony Davidson and Minardi's Justin Wilson had also been named in despatches.

"Contrary to the speculation around us on the subject of Antonio's future,"explains Pitchforth, "he will race this weekend in Barcelona and we will continue to support his development and growth. Both Jaguar Racing and Antonio share a mutual interest in the outcome of his development and both sides have every interest of extracting the maximum from the potential of the R4 package over a race weekend."

Pizzonia's response is straight forward: "It's important for me to ignore the recent press speculation about my position in the team and perform to the best of my ability in Barcelona. I'm looking forward to this race for several reasons, not least because this is the first opportunity I will have this season to race on a circuit where I've driven an F1 car. I have completed hundreds of kilometres of testing here and this was where I drove a Jaguar for the first time last September.

"I like the Barcelona track, but it's a challenge as regards finding a well-balanced car and the four high-speed corners make aerodynamic efficiency important."