Beschreibung:

The Jaguar Racing Formula 1 team was created in time to contest the World Championship racing series of the year 2000. During the previous summer, former three-time World Champion Driver Jackie Stewart and his family had sold their Formula 1 operation to the Ford Motor Company. Ford then decided to re-brand the team under their Jaguar banner for 2000. Consequently it was amidst a blaze of global publicity that the first-ever works Jaguar Formula 1 cars emerged for the opening race of that new series in Melbourne, Australia, on March 12, 2000. The ‘R1’ cars were designed by former Reynard, Jordan and Stewart engineer Gary Anderson and powered by the latest Cosworth-Ford iteration of its 3-litre V10-cylinder Formula 1 engine, the model CR2. This power unit drove through a Jaguar magnesium-cased six-speed longitudinal transaxle, and delivered a claimed 810bhp at some 17,600rpm. The engine was widely praised as being one of the smallest and most compact in contemporary Formula 1 , but sadly its season was marred initially by component shortages, and subsequently by problems with the joint engine/transmission lubrication system. Regardless, no Jaguar collection can be truly complete without an example of the marque’s Formula 1 foray, and this particular example of the inaugural R1 design has a particularly interesting history. It was used in no fewer than seven of the 2000-series World Championship Grand Prix races by former Ferrari star driver Eddie Irvine. In his hands it achieved Jaguar Racing’s best-ever finish that season by taking the chequered flag in sixth position – scoring a World Championship point – in the year’s final event, the Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix at the Sepang circuit on October 22. Chassis ‘R1-05’ offered here had become Eddie Irvine’s regular car from the German Grand Prix forward, on July 30 that year. For the Hungarian Grand Prix at Budapest on August 13, Irvine again qualified 10th fastest an acheived an 8th place finish. Before the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps on August 27, Irvine qualified this car 12th fastest and finished 10th, and at Monza for the Italian Grand Prix problems during qualifying left him 14th on the starting grid – and he was eliminated from the race by becoming involved in a multiple accident on the opening lap which also sidelined five other cars. At Indianapolis for the United States Grand Prix, Irvine started ‘R1/5’ from 18th spot on the starting grid from which he recovered to miss out on a World Championship point by only the narrowest of margins – finishing seventh. He then qualified the faithful ‘R1-05’ in seventh place for the Japanese Grand Prix .During the race he featured strongly – holding fifth place in this car for the first 15 laps before his first scheduled pit stop – in which a jammed right-rear wheel nut cost him three irrecoverable seconds and he finally completed the long and grueling race in 8th place. His World Championship point-scoring success with the car in the following – and final – round at Sepang then provided Jaguar Racing withy some much-needed consolation after its difficult debut season. This car is offered here as purchased by the present vendor from Jaguar Racing in a charity auction.