Jaguar opt for Friday testing

The Jaguar Racing team has announced that it is to make a late U-turn and take up the option of Friday testing on grand prix weekends.

The decision means that the Milton Keynes based outfit will have an extra two hours of testing time to acclimatize their cars to the circuit before the weekend. Although this limits the amount of testing time the away from GP weekends, the team sees numerous advantages in taking up the option.

"This benefits Jaguar in several ways. First and foremost, our drivers will now have an extra two hours to familiarize themselves with the circuits and in Antonio's case, this is invaluable given his debut season an F1 driver," commented Jaguar spokesman Nav Sidhu.

"In addition, it makes our logistical operation more efficient in that we are not having to continuously transport cars from races to tests. Instead, we can have one car dedicated to testing and three others dedicated entirely to the race schedule. There is no transferring of cars, equipment or people."

Away from grand prix weekends, Jaguar Racing, along with Jordan, Renault and Minardi are also allowed twenty one-car test sessions. This, according to the team, is not too big a departure from the previously planned schedule.

"Within the new framework, we can now have twenty one-car test sessions which, to be honest, isn't too different to what we had planned in the first instance," added Sidhu. "The new framework will also allow us to better exploit the Michelin tyre development programme and if you look at races like Monaco, Canada and Australia where teams do not test prior to the race weekend, two extra hours on the Friday is far better for us than, say, six hours of testing around Valencia."

"The management have done their sums very carefully on this, weighed up every alternative and we are convinced that this gives us considerably more bang for our buck."

-jaguar-