Tony Burroughs
Jaguar test team manager
Silverstone test 28/6/2

This interview was carried out during a busy test at Silverstone during 2002, this was not long after one of the many restructures, when Niki Lauda was still in charge and when driver Eddie Irvine was still paired with Pedro De La Rosa. I tried to follow a line of questioning to explain the processes involved in testing.

Explain your role in the team
I guess I am just a baby sitter really, I make sure every one is doing what they’re supposed to be doing and where they’re supposed to be. From the engineer to the driver, all the mechanics, data control guys, I just oversee the lot really

Who do you report to who
David Stubbs who is race team manager and through him we report to Gunther Steiner MD of Jaguar racing

Is this a dedicated test team
Yes

Do test team staff migrate to the race team
Usually people are aiming to go racing, that’s the pinnacle of F1, that’s what every ones aiming to do so they come into the test team and gain experience, but you want to have an experienced test team. You can’t have a lot of people who haven’t done it before, anyone who comes into jaguar racing usually leaves a team, arrives in the test tea, work hard keep their head down and then when a position is available with the race team they like to move over. Idiots like myself prefer the test team, we prefer the technical side of it, the challenging side of it, rather than the glitz.

Are there different skills between the race and test teams
No the car is prepared exactly the same, everything is exactly the same, it has to be in case their required in the race team. We need to keep it identical so they can poach one of my guys stick‘em there and its not foreign to them, the way the car is prepared, the equipment he’s using, the way the pit looks its all everything is identical.

Dedicated test car
Yes 2 dedicated test cars

Identical to the race cars
Just different levels of (data) logging

Who sets the test program
That depends on the problems we having at the time. There’s usually the steady things you have all the time, Michelin have so many tyres to test, Cosworth will always have, not different engines but different specs of engine or trying different control software. We had a problem in the last race, there was something we wanted to try, see if that cures it for the next race, we never put anything on the race car unless its is tested first. Parts that the drawing office have come up with, these are al scheduled, so if the drawing office have an idea for this wing, they say they can get it done by that test, three or fours tests away so it will always be pencilled in for that test. During that time there will be a million other things, some like the new chief engineer Vincent Geroulitis, he will get the engineers together and say this is what we need to do, these are the programmes we need to get through. Try this with Eddie (Irvine), this with Pedro (de La Rosa) and those engineers go away and run the day.

Test team engineer prioritises?
They prioritise As, Bs, Cs, A must get done now matter what, snow or rain…

Tyre testing
We try tyre after tyre on the car, we’re looking at the times, temps, pressures, how the tyre looks when it comes off

With a Base set up
Yes and the same fuel levels

Driver instructions
Some one like Eddie (Irvine) who’s very experienced, he did a lot of the tyre testing at Ferrari 99%, he’s got quite a sensitive feel for compounds and tyres, he’ll come along and reel off exactly where its better, where its worse and what problems there are with it.

Data or Driver
You can learn 70-80% from the data, even if the driver never spoke a word, it will show us a certain G through a certain corner, but the driver will say its just a little tail happy, It just had a bit of a wobble, or in a race situation it would be better if I had this sort of feel for overtaking purposes, or in qualifying its got a nice feel. The more experienced guys can tell what you really want for Qualifying, what you really want for the Race and what will last. Any testing is just squiggly lines, back up for the driver, or the driver is just good back up for the data, it depends what engineer you talk to.

Formal processes
At the end of the day half and hour after the session finishes we’ll congregate in the office in the truck with Cosworth, Michelin, the control guys, the electronic guys, the engineers, myself and the chief engineer, talk for about an hour about how the days gone, it starts with Cosworth they reel off what they’ve got through, what they’ve learnt and other people throw in things relative to what they’re talking about. After that we go to the control guys, this is what the driver thought of the clutch, this software and go around the table so we all know what happened today and throw some comments in for the next day. Next morning an hour before we run, we do the same again, we congregate and go through the plan.

Is this all written down and sent back to the factory
Its noted down and the chief engineer takes it back with him, they’ve got the notes from all the different things, the Cosworth guys they’ll be asking Eddie Irvine, as the drivers’ in on this meeting as well, they say what they’ve done and how we’ve done today, but then they’ll say right Eddie, how’s the engine power, drivability, high revs low revs, they’ll ask al these questions in boxes, the control guys ask; clutch feel, gear change etc.

Performance testing
Some time you do longer runs to see hw the tyres degrade, see if it works with this on longer run, it might be fine for one or two laps. But more than usual its shorter runs, try a new bar or a new spring layout, you’ll try it on news then old tyres, then change the springs, then another set of new tyres then old tyres, some times you go back again to what you did before to confirm that your first reading was right. Its along process to confirm this spring is right.

Is the testing blind for the driver
No, most of the drivers are involved

Straight-line tests?
At, Lurcy Levis, Vairano and Elvington. We do all sorts, we do coast downs, we have sensors all over the car, usually pressure sensors dotted everywhere, so you can see what’s happening measuring downforce we’ve got camera all over the car, with tufts of wool, we still do vision in places where its difficult to measure pressure, you just want to see what’s happening. Its helped quite a bit. We run up and down, up and down trying different ride heights with the same wing config.