BREAKING NEWS!! JAGUAR PULL OUT OF F1

I, for one, am very sad to see Jaguar leave F1. I understand the reasoning, but it still frustrates me. Jaguar has an image of performance and class. Their winning Le mans really helped bring the mark back to prominence. In all truth, Jaguar has a special place in the world of auto racing. To see them shutter the doors and run away is not something to be proud of.

I love F1, but I am afraid things have got to change pretty drastically. As I have mentioned here before, I am fearful of a castration of the series. F1 can't be less that the best cars, on the best circuits, with the best drivers. Anything less is CART, IRL, F3000, or even the new A1. Being the best is expensive. But if Jaguar/Ford cannot afford to play at this level, who the hell can? How long can the series survive without some kind of better finacial reasoning?

I'll say it again, I will miss Jag.

 

anyone else sniff something




a year from now a FORD GT based supercar racing LeMans? going back to 1-2-3 attempt...... with all the stops pulled out to make it happen


just a notion

 

Another very good reason for the F1 teams to break away from the SLEC gravy train.
Why should Ecclestone make billions whilst the teams go to the wall.

As for the problems with road car production, where the F*£ck was that gormless lying Tw"t Blair....................... Jaguar / Rolls Royce / Bentley / Rover / Land Rover gone, what will that moron allow to be sold off next, could anybody see Germanys chancellor allow Porsche or VW to be sold off

 

Andrew, excellent post. Eccelstone is one greedy little Napoleanic Turd. He is in bed with the FIA. I wish they would break away from this Crook. He gets 53% of all the TV Rights and all signage Rights. All the teams combined now get 47% of the TV money. That is a joke, without the Teams there would be no F1.

 

Well unfortuantely I'm not well versed in F1 but I am a fan. I saw the news report and thought. This cant be good. It seems pretty simple to me (of course simple is what I do.) But if all this money is thrown around in the wrong places to the wrong people, you're going to loose players. If Ford has decided that it's going to build (and I'm sure heavily advertise) a new XK sports coupe and at the same time get out of sports car driving, then Ford must feel very strongly that F1 is not going well. If it was, then you sell sports cars with a racing history. Hello Ferrari owners. Something must be pretty wrong when I can't hardly ever get to watch F1 on TV especially when I try too. But I can't find a channel to not have to see white trash driving in circles.
Something's wrong with F1 if a huge company like Ford doesn't want to be apart of racing even with a new sports car with the same brand name on it coming out. Not to mention your "cousin" is trying to be the newest and best $150k sports car.

 

Autosport seemed pretty convinced that somehow the team would continue as a strictly "Ford" operation. I agree with all of you who felt Jaguar branding was not only misguided, but a little transparent as well. They should focus on GT-based racing.

Branson/F1 rumours have been kicking around for a while, but being the shrewd businessman that he is, I'm sure he's at least sitting back to see what comes after the Concorde agreement expires.

Here's another very distinct possibility: Mr. Red Bull (name, anyone?) has been wanting to get that team of his up and running, and this could provide the ideal opportunity. Don't look now, but his U.S. driver development program is actually making some hay. And while they want to take things one step at a time, it's hard to pass on a chance to shoehorn your way into the upper-most echelon.

 

Hehe, Mercedes-Benz OWNS the market for high performace diesels, they gonna have a tough fight there.

 

Theres hardly any competition anymore in this series. Its always ferrari on top, but without any competition to rival them it gets rather lame, doesnt it>?

 

OT but gone too are Lotus and TVR (Russians!)

 

Will miss Jaguar as well. It was great to see the great car manufacturers of Europe all represented as it gave F1 more credibility.
Sometimes I think Ford focused a bit more on style and shallow Brand Marketing and not enough on substance, i.e., building a solid reputation for the Jaguar name through great displays of engineering. What people do remember is the silly diamond in the nose stunt.
Just no follow through on great promise because their resource priorities were misplaced...

For some of us, we still have stinging memories when Ferrari was poopy - but they were always in it for the long haul and it was about more than just being a short sighted marketing platform...

 

I wonder what will happent to all these drivers and the test drivers????Hmmmm...

 

Aren't the Concorde Agreements due to expire in 2006 or so?

While it's sad that classic names like Alfa, Jaguar, Lotus, BRM, and Maserati have left F1, what's even sadder is that there are few new sportscars manufacturers rising up to take their place.

This is the age of the SUV -- the tissue box hog that's deemed "safe" by insecure inept drivers because they're big. Chrysler went broke in the '70s by building a mediocre one-size-fits-all K-car. Looks like Chrysler was just ahead of their time.

Having cars like a Chapparal show up for one or two races to mix things up is better than having a few high price teams tossing the rules book at each other week after week. We're getting longer and longer seasons, but fewer and fewer manufacturers who feel like investing -- because it doesn't sell PT cruisers.

 

This is just another sign that FoMoCo is schizophrenic. On the one hand they are honoring their past racing exploits and introducing a new Ford GT, and on the other they are destroying said heritage by dumping Cosworth.

What good does it do to honor 100 years of Ford racing and then get out of the game? No amount of press releases can make the buying public forget what is going on on the race track today.

Bill Ford is proving that he can't lead. Period.

 

Companies don't join F1 because it's too bloody epensive.

 

What do you expect from Ford anyway? They were the last company into F1 and the first ones out. Bobby Rahal is probably splitting his sides from laughing so hard.

Andy

 

Its shame that Jaguar will not be next year...but still you never know...

 

Yes Boddy is probably laughing hard but your comment regarding Ford being the last into F1 is er, incorrect. Ford have been involved with F1 since 1967 and their engines that Cosworth built used to have a great reputation.

Bruce McLaren tried real hard to get one of the big 3 into F1, but in the end Colin Chapman succeeded.

Personally I think Ford made a mistake buying out the rest of Stewart-Ford. They should simply have stayed as engine partners ... rename the engine to Jaguar if you like, but being an engine partner and owning a team are miles different.

Pete

 

Agree totally. Dropping their top performance brand is crazy. The easiest way for them to tart up a car was to chuck a few parts at it and add the Cosworth badge ... now what are they going to do?

Pete

 

Pete, Yes, Ford's involvement with Cosworth is pretty obvious but they hadn't bought Stewart's team until recently. That's what I was referring to.

Its hard to take a company like Ford seriously if all they do is jump into a sport trying to make a quick "hit" and then jump out again. I think the best thing to come out of this will be if they auction off the assets like Arrows did. Maybe Minardi and Jordan will be able to upgrade their gear.

 

Yes very true ... they seem to have no long term vision ...

This is exactly what I always thought was going to happen to Jaguar, and this is also why they never performed well. If you are not racing for racings sake, you never will be competitive ... racing for PR and fancy functions, does not work.

Pete