JUNE 7, 2001

Newey war steps up as Rahal speaks out

JAGUAR RACING team chief Bobby Rahal has used a quote from McLaren counterpart Ron Dennis as the tug-of-war over the services of technical director Adrian Newey stepped up a gear in Canada.

Jaguar claimed to have signed McLaren technical man Newey last week for next season and said they had a legally binding agreement, which they later stated was approved by the Queens' Counsel.

McLaren immediately dismissed the report and said Newey was not leaving, and as both teams arrived in Montreal for this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix Rahal spoke out.

Rahal quoted Dennis from Austria, where the Jaguar boss claimed his McLaren rival supported contracts between teams and their personnel. Dennis was talking in reference to the Toyota and Minardi situation, which has developed after technical director Gustav Brunner controversially left the latter for the former.

"It was talked about in Austria interestingly and there was an interesting quote," said Rahal. "'It does not matter how big the company is, it should honor a contract unless both parties agree to change it.' And that was from Ron.

"I could not agree more as you would imagine. It makes sense. That was brought up specifically to the Brunner situation. This is a different situation. But Ron said it best."

Rahal added: "Our legal team is pursuing all options so stay tuned. Let's see what happens in the next few months. I don't want to get into the semantics of it, but it is a legally binding agreement and very specific in detail. We have been working to get him probably since I was on the scene."