By steve
April 30 2004

Jaguar had a pretty miserable race at Imola in 2003. Both drivers had start-line problems. Mark was slow to get away, losing 6 positions at the start, wasting his great qualifying position. Antonio wasn't even able to get away. He was pushed to the pits and had his engine restarted there,... eventually getting away, one lap down.
Mark had his first of three scheduled stops on lap 20 but also had an unscheduled trip through pit lane - for speeding in his first pit stop. Mark didn't lose any positions, only time - around 15 seconds. Marks race eventually ended 8 laps from the finish. He had been gaining ground on the BAR of Jenson Button, until he was forced to pull over(again with suspected drive shaft problems). Antonio Had a solid drive, his only problem was a stop that his pit crew were clearly not ready for, to finish in 14th position - Jaguars first finish for the year.
Without problems Mark would most likely have finished in the points, and Antonio may have also done well without his start-line problem.

Antonio had this to say,'The bad news from today is obvious but the good news is that a Jaguar has reached the chequered flag for the first time this season! My race was effectively over at the start though because of a launch-control problem. I simply couldn't get the system to engage and the team is looking into why. Given that I started the race from the pitlane one lap down, I was in no position to make an impact on the race but finishing was very important from a reliability-test perspective. We have a test next week in Mugello and we'll focus on correcting some of this weekend's issues prior to the Spanish GP.'

Mark had the following words,'The race began very badly for me with the issue on the start line and cost me a lot of positions. By the end of the first lap, I had gone from P5 to P11 but the pace of the Jaguar R4 was very good - something we have clearly demonstrated all weekend. The race then took another unfortunate twist for me with the Drive Through Penalty but there was still a lot to play for. I was up to P9 before I retired and I reckon I could have had Jenson Button's 8th place had it not been for traffic problems.
We obviously have some issues to address but let's be honest - I would much rather have a quick car with some reliability niggles than a slow and unreliable car. The program is clearly moving in the right direction and our pace is very encouraging in comparison to the top teams.
The Jaguar R4 has been very competitive at all the circuits it has raced on so far and given that Imola was our wake up call last year, I am quite confident now of this car's potential at the remaining twelve tracks facing us'


Dr Mark Gillan - Head of Vehicle Performance made these comments, 'A very disappointing end to a weekend which should have netted us some points. To have qualified in 5th place and lost over six positions by the first corner was very unfortunate indeed for Mark and at this stage, we are examining the problem to find out why it happened.
It's a very rare thing to have happened but Antonio also suffered from a start-line issue that meant starting from the pitlane. Just to add to our problem list, Mark was penalised with a Drive Through Penalty that in total cost us around 24 seconds. We don't know exactly the reason behind Mark's retirement but it looks like a suspected drive shaft failure. Once we get the cars back to the factory, we'll undertake a thorough investigation to find the root cause. We do, however, take away many positives from the weekend.
The Jaguar R4 has clearly been very competitive here all weekend and that's a good sign for the remaining circuits on the calendar. Like the front-runners today, we also adopted a three-stop strategy and the car was on the pace thereby proving that we are running comparable fuel loads with the top teams. The corrective action we took on the fuel pick-up issue that affected the first three races has worked successfully and we haven't seen signs of the problem at all this weekend.
The Jaguar R3 was way out of its depth here last year and to have taken such a big step to where we are now is very encouraging.
Points have eluded us so far but it will not be long now before we start earning a return on the huge investment everyone is making in terms of engineering-driven focus and commitment.' - LETS HOPE SO!