It is not very often that you get the opportunity to visit a Formula One team's factory. It's even less common to get a guided tour led by that team's star driver. Atlas F1's Mark Glendenning got just that chance before last year's Italian Grand Prix

The map said that this was definitely the right place to jump off the train.

But standing at Bow Brickhill station, literally a bus shelter and sign perched upon a raised section of asphalt and surrounded by little apart from a couple of council workers digging a hole, fields, a few distant sheep and other features typical of semi-rural Buckinghamshire, it's difficult to escape the feeling that someone's wires have been badly crossed. Probably mine.

In one direction the road appears to lead to a bunch of horses, so I head the other way instead. A factory looming up behind some trees just ahead looks promising, but proves to be a false alarm. Then, about 30 seconds and another cluster of greenery later, I suddenly find myself standing outside Jaguar Racing's Formula One headquarters.

Located just outside the repetitive suburbia of Milton Keynes, around 90 minutes north of London, the modern facility began its life as Stewart Racing's nerve centre before the team's reinvention as Jaguar in 2000. The operation was housed under one roof until 2002, when the team acquired a second building directly across the street to accommodate their expanded personnel and technology.

In the reception area, a steel spiral staircase winds its way up around a floor-to-ceiling glass trophy cabinet occupied by a few chunks of silverware, but with plenty of room for new additions. I occupy myself with a magazine for a few minutes, before a casually-dressed Mark Webber materialises from a team meeting. He's knackered, having flown in from Italy at 1:00am from a particularly tough test at Monza, but is otherwise in good spirits. After a standard Mark Webber-style handshake (not bone-crushing, but close) and exchange of pleasantries, we are on our way. Or, we would be, if only Webber could get the electronic security swipe card to work.

Leaving reception, we pass through a design area to emerge rather suddenly in Jaguar's composites department. Most of the floor space is occupied by the giant autoclaves - the ovens in which freshly-pressed carbon-fibre undergoes the curing process behind the material's mighty strength-to-weight ratio. On a table nearby is an assortment of scaled-down carbon-fibre bodywork from the R4 wind tunnel model. All of the aero bits on the car begin their life in this way, clocking up hours in miniature form under analysis at the team's wind tunnel half an hour up the road before being deemed worthy of production for on-track testing and, possibly, addition to the race car.

"Our factory is pretty small," says Webber, just as I'm about to comment on how big everything is. "It's nowhere near as fancy as some of the other teams." While Webber is putting things into perspective for me, I'm eyeing an unmarked door just over his right shoulder. "That's the R&D department," he notes, and answers my next question before I even have a chance to ask it: "Mate, there's no way I can take you in there." Bugger.

I follow Webber a few paces down the corridor to a section that he calls 'Woolworths'. It's the spares store, and massed on the floor-to-ceiling shelves are just about all the bits you'd need to build your very own fleet of Jaguar R4s.

Continuing on, we reach another door that requires a swipe card, and again the one in Webber's hand is hell-bent on stopping him from going any further. "This'll give them something to talk about," he says wryly as he gives up on the card and knocks instead. The guy who opens the door is indeed surprised to find the team's number one driver standing sheepishly on the other side of it, but the 10 or so people in the drawing room that we have just entered are obviously pleased to see him.

Webber addresses each individually, exchanging banter with some, sharing the news from the previous day's test with others. A couple of years ago, a Jaguar factory employee was heard to remark that he had never met Eddie Irvine, but times, it seems, have changed dramatically. Webber shows a keen interest in everybody's work, aware that their efforts will play a large part in shaping his results. And it is a reciprocal thing - his acknowledgement of their efforts inspires them to dig a little deeper. The rest of the team's operations are based in the other building across the road, so we return to the foyer and set off.

"You wouldn't believe what a big deal some of the guys in there make about having to actually cross the road," Webber grins. "They call it 'the gulf'."

As we reach the main entrance to the second building, we agree that if this was the McLaren factory, the two structures would have been linked by a monorail. Painted silver and black, of course.

Other than a discreet Jaguar Racing logo on the door (and two huge transporters parked inconspicuously around the side) there is little about this building that gives any clue about what goes on within its walls. But once you get inside, it is the F1 fan's equivalent of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Minus the Oompa-Loompas.

After walking between a cafeteria and the PR/marketing area, you emerge just outside the team's gearbox room. Occupied by roughly half-a-dozen technicians, all of whom launch into the same banter with their man as their colleagues had a few minutes earlier, the room is small-ish but nevertheless adequate for the job. "It works a bit like a production line," Webber explains.

"Each person is responsible for a particular part of the gearbox. The casing comes in, it chucks a lap of the room, and when it gets to the end you've got a finished gearbox."

After picking up a few stray cogs to marvel at how light they are, and peering through a window at some of the Jaguar's intricate exhaust components, we wander around to the race bay. Stripped of its wheels, wings and most of the bodywork, Webber's mount is sitting placidly on its stand alongside the spare and Justin Wilson's car.

Like Webber, the car has only just arrived back from Monza. It had been a mixed outing - being early September, Jaguar had just learned of the FIA's about-face regarding the eligibility of Michelin's tyres. While the test in Italy had suggested no reason to worry about the new-spec rubber's fundamental speed ahead of the following weekend's Italian GP, Webber had suffered a number of high-speed blowouts. "I almost took Michael out at about 330kph when one of the tyres let go," he tells the assembled engineers, who swooped upon him on first sight.

"That would have been interesting..." While the technicians set about tracing the cause of the problems, Webber sets about tracing the whereabouts of his bicycle, which accompanied him to Italy and returned in the team's transporter. A couple of minutes later, happy that his two-wheeler made it back in one piece and that his plans for a 'relaxing' couple of hours leaning over the handlebars later that afternoon are intact, our tour resumes.

But by now, we're almost there. We pop into a room adjoining the race bay, which contains a mock-up of the Jaguar's cockpit with a half-built gearbox attached to the back of it. Assorted loose parts are scattered on the table around it.

"You're looking at a few bits of R5 in amongst all that, mate" he teases, but won't elaborate on exactly which parts. Not that I'd have known the difference anyway. We return to the foyer. "I think that's just about it," Webber shrugs before turning to the staircase behind him. "Well, there are all the engineers upstairs - but if I go up there, I'll never get out." He can't help himself though, and moments later, he bounds up.

"I'll just be a minute," he calls over his shoulder. Ann Neal, who is basically responsible for organising all the time that Webber spends out of his race car, materialises next to me. She's just as tired as Webber, and just ready to go home.

"Mark hasn't gone upstairs, has he?" she asks. When I answer in the affirmative, her shoulders slump ever so slightly. "OK … we might be waiting for a while." Some time later, Webber finally reappears, and we head out to the car park - only for him to realise that he has forgotten his bike. He sprints back to get it, disassembles it so it fits into his modest road car, and graciously offers me a lift (the bike not leaving much room for a journo however, I decline).

With that he bids farewell, takes his leave and sets off for a couple of hours of well-earned chill-out time on the couch before returning to his training regime later in the afternoon.

Even in relaxation mode, Formula One drivers move at a different pace to us mortals...