JANUARY 18, 2001

Irvine to get new race engineer for 2001

JAGUAR driver Eddie Irvine will have a new race engineer for the 2001 season when Bobby Rahal finalizes negotiations with Prost's Humphrey Corbett.

Englishman Corbett is currently Jean Alesi's race engineer with Guyancourt-based Prost but has agreed to join Jaguar to replace Robin Gearing, who left along with Gary Anderson as part of chief executive officer Rahal's reshuffling.

A Jaguar spokesperson said: "We can't confirm any deal as of yet but obviously Robin Gearing has yet to be replaced and we are in negotiations for a replacement."

Corbett has been with Prost since 1996 and has worked as a race engineer for Pedro Diniz, Shinji Nakano, Olivier Panis, Jarno Trulli and Alesi. He worked with Roland Ratzenberger at Simtek when the Austrian driver was killed in action at Imola in 1994.