FORMULA ONE/Brazilian Grand Prix: Justin Hynes believes the decline in the fortunes of the Jaguar Racing team arises from problems at boardroom level and indecision on the design floor, both of which have combined to leave Eddie Irvine a defeated man

It hasn't been Eddie Irvine's week. It hasn't even been Eddie Irvine's fortnight. Two weeks ago, after the ignominy of qualifying in 20th place for the Malaysian Grand Prix, Irvine learned his court case against British radio station Talksport over unlicensed use of his image had gone in his favour. A week later though and Irvine learned, because he had turned down an earlier settlement offer, he would be forced to pick up the cost of his own legal fees, estimated at around £300,000.

Shortly before that he had also learned his crippled Jaguar team would not take last year's R2 car to this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix as the Irishman had hoped but instead would persevere with the new and utterly abysmal R3. The £300,000 the Irishman could perhaps crack a wry smile about, but being forced to drive the R3? That's no laughing matter.

Indeed, the R3 is the stuff of bitter tears. Nineteenth on the grid in Melbourne - where he was 12th in 2001 - and 20th in Kuala Lumpur two weeks ago - where he was again 12th on the grid last year, is hardly the stuff of delight. When he finished an unlikely fourth in Malaysia, Irvine could afford the small rejoinder of saying he had raced so well by qualifying badly. But that was all, folks, house lights down, show over.

In Malaysia it was a return to a disaster. The dismal showing left the team with no choice. They would return to Europe and run the R3 against last year's R2 in a head-to-head race. Irvine was backing the R2. It was a car he had done well with in 2001.

"I don't want to drive at the back of the field like a tosser and make a few million dollars," he said in Malaysia. "I have got to perform and if I don't perform I don't want to stay. It's no fun getting blown away. Last year I had so much fun in the races because we screwed up in qualifying then I had a good car for the race and it was fantastic."

That "fantastic" car was to be denied him. Confirming that Jaguar would test both cars in Barcelona prior to this weekend's race, Jaguar boss Niki Lauda said Irvine would get his R2 only if it was significantly quicker than the R3. That wasn't the case. On the penultimate day of the test Irvine stepped into the R2, while team-mate Pedro de la Rosa slipped into the cockpit of the R3. It was a battle Irvine was desperate to win.

After Sepang's qualifying session Irvine's facade of cultivated braggadacio crumbled under the weight of his disappointment.

"I am finding it very hard indeed to get to grips with this car," said Irvine. "Pedro has done a better job with it and that's probably down to his style of driving, particularly the way he tackles the corners. I like carrying speed through the corners and this car isn't conducive to my approach into corners."

That was the talk of a defeated man. But given a last-ditch chance to outflank the R3 in Barcelona, Irvine couldn't raise his or the R2's game high enough. After 48 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya, Irvine had clocked a best time of one minute 19.828 seconds to take 10th place on the day's timesheet. De la Rosa was seventh, albeit just six hundredths of a second faster. The decision was made. Irvine would drive R3 in Brazil.

For Irvine though it is a massive leap backwards. Last year he out-qualified his team-mate seven to six. This year, in R3, Irvine had been beaten in both opening qualifying sessions by de la Rosa.

"This race has always been tough on me," said Irvine. "My only points finish at Interlagos was a sixth place back in 1999 and ever since then, Brazil has eluded me. I expect no different this year either."

Again, the sound of a defeated man. The question is, how could Irvine, the man who lost the 1999 drivers championship to Mika Hakkinen by just two points, come to such a pass - the point where Jaguar's parent company, Ford, one the world's biggest motor manufacturers, is being out-qualified by a tiny Anglo-Italian-Australian racing team run from a garage in Faenza and running engines built by a dubious band of Asian multi-millionaires of uncertain provenance?

The answer's are manifold, and surely include too many cooks spoiling the Jaguar broth at board level within Ford and the companies that run Jaguar Racing. But the race team itself has proved to be a political minefield of fearful power.

In 2000, when Jaguar was born from the ashes of Stewart, the job of running the new team was handed to Neil Ressler, an American with little experience. Ressler was at the time a major player at Ford and president of Premier Automotive Group. Despite these demands, he saw no reason why he could not also find the time to run a Formula One team. Eight months on Ressler stood down, handing the reins over to American former racer, Bobby Rahal. The demands had been too much.

Rahal ran a championship-winning CART team. He had also accepted the reins of the CART series itself. But now Ford expected him to run a Formula One team as well.

By the beginning of the 2001 season, the realisation dawned that Rahal would not be able to involve himself in the day-to-day running of the team as Jaguar Racing would have liked. In came Niki Lauda to give Rahal "a hand". It was a marriage made in hell. Relations quickly soured.

But the discord didn't end in the Jaguar Racing's boardroom. On the design floor, indecision reigned. A disastrous first season was expected to be turned around last year with the hiring of a new technical team of Steve Nichols, formerly of McLaren, John Russell and Mark Handford.

But once again, while the Cosworth engine was deemed to be one of the grid's best, Jaguar's R2 was an aerodynamic disaster.

Now Jaguar's salvation has been entrusted to a new man - Ben Agathangelou, who joins as head of aerodynamics from May 1st. He comes to the team from Renault F1.

Truth be told, however, some of Jaguar's aerodynamic woes stem from the team's inability to access a wind-tunnel with any ease. In an era in which aerodynamics have become the key to success in Formula One, Jaguar are the only established manufacturer-backed team without an in-house wind tunnel.

Ultimately, Jaguar's and Irvine's travails must be put down to bad management. In 1999, after just three years in existence, the tiny Stewart team took its tiny budget and its Gary Anderson-designed SF03 to fourth place in the world championship. Three years on and Jaguar are being out-qualified by Minardis and beaten by Arrows.

This weekend Jaguar Racing will be ecstatic if Irvine can even finish in the top ten. The big cat's roar has been reduced to little more than the helpless whine of a drowning kitten and for Irvine, whose three-year $12 million per season deal expires at the end of this season, the chill waters may be closing over his head.