Jaguar continues work on its windtunnel

As reported several months ago, the British based Jaguar team are working at their second windtunnel facility. The team has finished demolishing old parts of the 1950's Bedford windtunnel, and aim to have the work finished in 2005

Besides their already active windtunnel in Oxford, the team is convinced it needs more facilities, just to keep up with the top teams, especially because it has no rolling road.

Such rolling roads are considered standard in current f1 windtunnnels, and provide accurate simulation of rotating wheels and their influence on the car's total aerodynamics.

"The car you have at the end of the season is so different from the one you started it with," said Jaguar Racing's communications manager Nav Sidhu. "When you're not racing you're on the test track. And when you're not testing you're in the wind tunnel."

The team states about 2 or three windtunnels are needed in Formula One to become highly competitive. But as Jaguar is not financed by gigantic loads of money, the team opted for the renovation of an existing tunnel.

''The most impressive thing about it is the sheer size of it,'' Sidhu added. ''It would cost a fortune to build such a large size tunnel from scratch.''