Friday January 28th, 2000

Gary Anderson believes careful progress from last year's carefully developed Stewart-Ford is going to make the new sleek British racing green Jaguar a strong contender this year in the FIA Formula One World Championship. But the Milton-Keynes based team's technical director is making no promises, even though he feels his car has more potential for traction and performance than last year's Ferrari. That view, of course, comes courtesy of some insightful comments from his new driver, who is an old friend, Eddie Irvine.

"It is quite a low weight car again," said Anderson. "It is also quite a small car. Of course, it is on the limit. I have always gone to the limit with all my cars and tried not to waste anything. With all the cars I have helped to design, I have stuck to the same fundamental principles and then compromised a bit here and there afterwards. The same is true of this one. I think everyone likes it. It has been okay in testing and the drivers seem pleased. It has potential, too.

"How new is it? Well, it is all new. All the engineering is new. But I am not going to say how new it is of course in specific ways. It is enough to say it is a car built around the traditional principles, but with a lot of new thinking in it. Obviously, it is small, light and, we hope, going to be competitive."

Anderson was not in the mood to give away too many secrets at the launch of the new Jaguar at Lords cricket ground in London, but admitted the nose was 50 mms longer than last year and added that the latest Ford V10 engine supplied "more revs and more horsepower..." How much? ...Laughter.

Asked about the composition of the rear wing and its resilience, in the light of some problems the team faced with it last year, particularly at Hockenheim, Anderson said a lot of attention had been paid to making sure it was stronger and more secure than last year. He said most of the problems last year had been due to Ford's introduction of different evolutions of engine which had different vibration characteristics. He did not expect the same problems to be repeated.

Asked about Irvine, the technical director said he was just the same as he had always been. "He hasn't changed a bit," he said. "But he is not going to find Johnny (Herbert) any kind of pushover. They work well together and seem to want to get the job done in the proper way. I don't see there being any problems. It is very useful for us to have Eddie around because he has experienced so much at Ferrari and he can tell us what is not worth doing!"