Jaguar taste podium pressure

Jaguar's solid third place podium finish in Monza at the weekend may be a double-edged sword. On the one hand it gave the team a much-needed boost after a disappointing season, on the other it raises expectations of results in the remaining two races that they may struggle to repeat.

Since they arrived in Formula One in 2000, Jaguar's only real bright spots have been Eddie Irvine's third place at Monaco last year and now the Italian Grand Prix. The latter came as the team are about to be given a stay of execution after an internal report at Ford into their value to the firm.

The imminent arrival of Ford of Europe as "works" engine supplier to Eddie Jordan's team in 2003 has not pleased Ford in Detroit, but it shows which way the wind had been blowing recently. The problem facing Ford is that Jaguar's involvement in F1, while boosting the marque's image, has yet to translate into tangible sales (something it may never do), nor, more importantly, has it had much effect on the average age of the Jaguar buyer.

One of the reasons behind the company's first dabble in a branch of the sport that it had previously shunned (Jaguar's sporting heritage has its roots in Le Mans-type sportscar racing) was to attract younger buyers. That will clearly take time. At one stage sale of the team to the Red Bull energy drinks company seemed highly likely, but that is in abeyance until 2004 at the earliest.

Jaguar's R3 car should have brought respectability. But until last weekend it has failed to do that. "Every time I've driven the car I've complained that we have a serious issue," Irvine admitted earlier in the season. "The car has never handled. It's just not responsive to any changes that we make. We weren't quick enough spotting the problem. The car oversteers like crazy on the entry, understeers mid-corner and then doesn't really have a lot of grip on the exit."

In Belgium recently there were signs of improvement, and at Monza the team hit the jackpot. But now they go to Indianapolis, where Ford's corporate leaders will surely go expecting to see their new wondercar do it again. The chances of a repeat performance there are limited, however. Monza is all about power, which Jaguar has aplenty with its Cosworth engine, and braking performance. It is a place where chassis performance is much less important. Indianapolis and Suzuka, venue for the Japanese Grand Prix in October, will again put a premium on chassis performance, and the R3 is nowhere near as torsionally stiff as last year's car.

"It's absolutely fantastic and just reward for the extremely hard work that has produced today's result," Niki Lauda, the team principal, said. "We knew coming into this weekend that we had a good chance of claming a point or two but the car performed extremely competitively and without a doubt, Eddie drove a storming race." But, ironically, far from providing relief, the team's best result will put them under even greater pressure.