MARCH 9, 2004

Jaguar to get access to a third windtunnel

Jaguar Racing continues to ramp up its technical back-up in Formula 1 with the revelation that the team will have a third windtunnel for the project by 2005. The team is currently refurbishing the former Ministry of Defence windtunnel at Bedford in England and running a second facility in Bicester. However the team wants to get access to a 100% scale windtunnel with a rolling-road. To date the team has been renting space in the Stuttgart University windtunnel and at Pininfarina in Italy but engineers are now working to build a rolling road for the Volvo windtunnel in Goteborg, Sweden, so that Jaguar will be able to run full-scale testing of its F1 cars. Volvo is, of course, a Ford subsidiary and Goteborg is easily reached thanks to ferry connections from Harwich, which is within easy reach of the Jaguar factory in Milton Keynes. The Volvo windtunnel would allow the team to have a 27 sq.m working area.