Jaguar wind tunnel finally operational.

Coinciding with the announcement of an addition to its aerodynamics team, Jaguar Racing was also able to confirm the imminent opening of its own wind tunnel.

Having made use of facilities as far apart as Southampton in the UK and California in the US, the Milton Keynes-based team will now be able to base its research at a new site in Bicester, less than 30 miles from the factory. With two years spent in Formula One without its own tunnel, Jaguar's aerodynamic progress is now expected to take an accelerated path towards top-level competitiveness - something that has been lacking since it replaced Stewart Racing in the top flight.

The new wind tunnel starts contributing to the development of the R3 from next Tuesday, and is the culmination of a project initially undertaken by Reynard Engineering in May 2002. The facility has taken just eleven months to transform from an empty building to undergoing its first production tests. It will be manned by a permanent Jaguar Racing staff of ten people and will act as a satellite testing facility to the core aerodynamics department at the Milton Keynes HQ.

"We will initially be using the windtunnel for 16 hours a day, six days a week, moving to a 24 hour-a-day operation in the very near future," explained the team's managing and technical Guenther Steiner.

"With our new wind tunnel, we can now set clearly defined goals which will allow us to compete on an even playing field with our competitors in Formula One. There isn't a big disparity between the teams these days when it comes to engines, tyres and other major components, as was the case a few years ago. To extract any true performance improvement these days takes experienced aerodynamicists who have the resource in wind tunnel terms and, at last, we have that resource on our doorstep."

The tunnel adheres to a proven design using the latest version of the Pi Mistral control and data acquisition system, supplied by fellow Premier Performance Group company Pi Group Ltd. British manufacturers supplied the other components in the tunnel, and the fast track collaboration project highlights further the valuable contribution that UK-based companies are making to the ever-expanding British motorsport industry.