Pedro de la Rosa rumours take new turn.

Pedro de la Rosa looks set to join Jaguar Racing as a driver after all despite reports from the team to the contrary.

Rumour has it that Pedro is set to replace not Eddie Irvine but Luciano Burti. Apparently behind the scenes manoeuvring and influence from new Jaguar man Niki Lauda is trying to replace the Brazilian with the Arrows reject.

Indeed according to our sources F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone was aware of this mid-last week and has joined Niki Lauda in trying to replace him with the talented Spaniard.

Unfortunately though for Pedro (and fortunately for Burti) nobody told Prost of this and when the story was known it is believed to have jeopardized the whole plan. A key player seems to be Julian Jakobi who is marketing adviser of Prost and manager of Pedro. He also pulls strings at Jaguar and at other teams (Williams, Arrows, and Sauber) and now Jakobi has been fired from Prost because of this.

A spokesperson for the Jaguar team said: "There was no truth in this rumour whatsoever."

Presently the Prost team has been unavailable to comment on why Julian Jakobi has left the team.