Jaguar R4

After some years in Formula One, and distinctly troubled times, claiming the leaderships of Niki Lauda and Bobby Rahal, Jaguar became much more tranquil in 2003. Under leadership from Tony Purnell and Dave Pitchforth, they knew results were needed and they were out there to get them. At the end of 2002, Eddie Irvine was out of contract and retired from Formula One, and Pedro De La Rosa was negotiated out of his standing contract. New drivers, Mark Webber and Antonio Pizzonia were drafted into the team. The whole management team was re-structured along with the drivers.

The car was next for the new treatment, and the R4 was completely re-designed and re-structured when compared to the old R3. They focussed on a much stiffer chassis and wanted the car to be ready for the track so they tried to root out any problems during the pre-season with much testing on track and in the laboratories.

2003 season
The new R4 was just about ready for the 2003 season but it had covered very few miles as a completely finished package. There were many reliability problems which caused this lateness. The reliability of the package was not brilliant, but this did not reflect on Cosworth the engine suppliers who had done a great job of supplying the team with the engines for the hybrid chassis and testing. It was a lot to do with varying conditions. At the Brazilian Grand Prix Webber crashed heavily which was part of what eventually led to the race being red flagged, after this the car consistently finished well and the mood of commitment and determination from Webber really helped the team. Pizzonia was not such a great starter which was quite surprising compared to his experience and the quality of the car.

Pizzonia issues
After the Spanish Grand Prix it was made clear publicly that Jaguar Racing did not want to keep Antonio Pizzonia under contract. It was reported widely that they wanted to snap up experienced McLaren test driver Alex Wurz. However this came to nothing as McLaren wanted Wurz's experience in developing the new car so retained him as test driver. This left Jaguar in a sticky situation, and had to back track themselves, apologising and keeping Pizzonia until the British Grand Prix. This was his most convincing drive of the season but Jaguar replaced him with Justin Wilson who at the time was driving for the Minardi team.

Sponsors
In the 2003 Season, Jaguar were sponsored by the following companies; AT&T, Beck's, Castrol, DuPont, EDS, HP, HSBC, Japhiro, Lear, Michelin, MSC Software, Mumm, Pioneer, Puma, Rolex, Volvo and 3D Systems.

Complete season results
(key) (results in bold indicate pole position)