European Race Review 2003- Jaguar Formula One

By steve
June 2 2004

Jaguar had a pretty good race at the Nurburgring. Neither driver had a spectacular qualifying session - Mark Qualified in 11th position with Antonio in 16th - but both had shown good pace during the practice sessions and looked forward to a competitive race.

Both drivers may have scored points but a stop-go penalty and a mix-up with his tyres ruined Pizzonia’s chance. Mark Webber finished in 6th position(Jaguars highest placing for the year) whilst Antonio Pizzonia Finished 10th.

Dr Mark Gillan, Head of Vehicle Performance’s comments: " Our tyre choice, race strategy and yet another fine drive from Mark has earned us a precious three championship points today. We were quite comfortable going into this race knowing that we had opted for a race strategy all weekend as opposed to putting too many eggs into the qualifying basket. This paid off today! Both drivers made a good start and even though Mark lost a couple of places at the first corner, he recovered very quickly to stamp his authority further up the grid. We modified our strategies to suit the changing race order and both drivers pushed very hard out there today.

Antonio was unlucky to have suffered from a stop-go penalty and we’ll have to look at the data to see exactly where the offence was committed. Nonetheless, we are clearly making an impression on our reliability targets and combined with the competitiveness of the Jaguar R4, we will be looking for more points in Magny-Cours next weekend. Michelin, Cosworth and the team have done a great job this weekend in that we haven’t suffered from one issue since we arrived. Credit must also go to everyone back at base who has done an excellent job and with back-to-back races, have another hard week ahead of them. Excellent work all round."

Mark Webber’s comments:" A tough and sometimes frustrating race but one which has given us three more championship points – both on the Constructor’s and Driver’s table. I’m a little disappointed not to have achieved a better balance on the car and at times, the rear tyres were simply too good. I suffered understeer during the first two stints but after my second stop, the car came good and very competitive. It was interesting and quite enjoyable to fight the BAR-Honda of Jenson Button out there today and in the end, my pit-crew did a great job to help get me out ahead of him. I kept pushing very hard towards Jenson and once ahead him, the aim was to keep driving hard and away from him. The balance of the car was very good and Michelin have done an incredible job here this weekend. The reliability is also clearly much better and with seven races left on the calendar, we are far from finished in the points battle."

Antonio Pizzonia’s comments:" A frustrating race for me in that there was some confusion between myself and the pit-crew when it came to the tyre change during my second stop. We are looking into how this happened, but it appears that the wrong tyres were put onto my car and this didn’t make for an easy race. The car was difficult to drive and coupled with my ten-second stop-go, I was forced to finish outside the points. I’ve struggled to find an optimum set-up here all weekend and we have made several changes to the car to try and help cure this. The reliability, however, keeps on going from strength to strength and combined with the competitiveness, we are clearly making good progress. Just a shame not to have shared some championship points with Mark today."