Club Arnage

The Jaguar racing F1 team will change name to Ford and the team will be 50% owned & funded by Chinese money for 2005.

Ford are to can the WRC team for 2005 but instead do a few european rounds and support private teams.

They're keen on participating in WTCC in Europe and looking at the ALMS for 2006 for a return of the Jag brand to the US, and use the Mazda name for a return to LMP2 in 2005.

Quite where this leaves the Aston Project I don't know, but as Ford are not suppling much money anyway it should go ahead as planned.

I had the idea the Aston Project would definatly be going ahead, as Pro Drive have already built the car, and testing was to comence very soon.

I have heard a whisper of a rumer that it it might be out this weekend at Silverstone. Its only a whisper mind.

Seeing its been passed through about 76 people it probly started out as "Look at the pair on that"

The boss man of Aston Martin made a big press announcement about the DB9 and the DBR9 at the Le Mans Classic and stated that Prodrive were building it.

I understand that it is being put together in the Prodrive facility at BAR in Brackley. Also its the Aston Martins Owners Club, meet on Sat at Silverstone ..........Hum I wonder........

I was told at Farnborough Air show by some guy from BAR that it was built, in pieces, and they were developing it. He promised a factory tour at some point , but i cant find his business card now !

As far as I'm concerned Ford can sh*t-can that F1 project completely (hell, for that matter sh*t-can F1 completely).  It would be nice to see the Jag name back in sportscars and most definitely looking forward to seeing the new Aston at Sebring in March.
Fax

Nordic, where did you get the info about the Chinese buying into Jaguar?. There are plenty of unconfirmed media reports about the Ford rebranding of the team, and also reliable sources hinting that the team will be scrapped completely at the end of this year. To quote from the Daily Telegraph website of 9th Sept......

"Budgets for next year have still not been signed off at the head office of parent company Ford, leading to fears that the renowned British marque may not be on the grid next season.

 
 
Jaguar team principal Tony Purnell has been candid about Ford's position on the company's participation in F1, claiming that unless the cost of competing came down, an exit would be sought. Ford have not reached that point yet but are understood to be prepared to axe the Jaguar livery to accommodate a new title sponsor, or even rebrand the team under the organisation's familiar blue oval logo.

David Pitchforth, Jaguar Racing's managing director, was in meetings with prospective sponsors yesterday in pursuit of the extra funding required to allow the team to compete, in the short term at least, with rival manufacturers at the top end of the F1 grid.

Jaguar arrived in F1 to a great fanfare in 2000 but have struggled to make an impact, finishing no higher than seventh in the constructor's championship, the position they occupy going in to the Italian Grand Prix.

A series of poor appointments both at senior management level and behind the wheel of the car did not help. The appointments of Purnell and Pitchforth two years ago proved a turning point of sorts but without the necessary investment from Ford, the improvements made behind the scenes have gone largely unrecognised.

Pitchforth was not even able to counter the offer that took Mark Webber, the team's highly regarded Australian driver, to Williams for the 2005 season. Even more distressing, with Jaguar's future undecided, he is unable to appoint a replacement.
"

But no mention of the Chinese.

I think the 'Chinese buying f1 team' may have been someones wishful thinking that I was a bit quick to believe.

But the chinese market is the biggest growing market in the world, and there is a GP there in the coming months so there may be some truth in it, I guess we will have to wait and see.

Ford do have a fair bit going on in China currently, one thing being they're making the new Focus replacement there (saving themselves a few billion in the process i imagine). I will see what further info I can tap my contact for!

Well there's some truth in the content of this thread it would seem, but not a great deal; Jaguar F1 is to go back to the Ford brand (let's face it, they haven't really done the Jag marque much justice), but as for the China connection, my mate can't see where that much funding would come from, unless there's a new sponsorship in the pipeline. Can't think of a Chinese based company whose logo would fit with the blue oval on white colour scheme. Any ideas?

This is all very interesting to me, on a more general level.  For some years now, I've been watching the general commercial trend in China, and there is no doubt that they want to become major international players in all sorts of areas.  

Their banking systems have been improved dramatically in the last few years, and the general trend in their manufacturing industries to take on western management techniques etc. have been quite impressive.  I've been saying for some time now, that the Chinese will make the Japanese industrial emergence (post WW2) look fairly tame, within the next decade.  Motor racing just seems to fit right in with the general trend.

Watch this space.........................

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/3665810.stm

Heres the latest in the Jag F1

Good.

Jags belong in sports car racing, where their tradition and heritage lies. No word on any possible return, looks like they won't be in motorsport at all, which is a crying shame. Bad news to about the impending Browns Lane, home of the C, D and E types, but that's the downside of globalisation for you.

Appropos of nowt, my grandad was a Jag dealer and one of my earliest memories was being taken to Browns Lane as a four year old kid and being sat in the cockpit of a D Type, which I think was in the reception area. My brother and myself were give little diecast scale models of the D, which my mother hid from us so that we could treasure them in later life. Unfortunately my brother and myself found them when we were about nine and having prised the car of it's wodden plinth, proceeded to wreck the thing. Doh!! :-[ What idiots, one of my biggest regrets in life. But it started my interest in cars, racing and LM, so I suppose it wasn't a total waste of time.

Can't say that I'm going to be shedding any tears over the Jag F1 team packing up.  Jaguar and F1 never sounded right in the first place.  Fords F1 commitment has always been suspect to say the least.  A few years ago when the CEO of Ford asked who the hell is Eddie Irvine and why is he the second highest paid employee of Ford, that should have been a pretty good indication of just how strong their enthusiasm really was.
John

BBCi is now reporting that Tony Purnell "head of Fords premier vehicle division motorsport" is trying to put together a buyout deal to keep the team going in F1.

So maybe the Chinese Connection does exist ........

Its not just Jag F1 (no bad thing) closing or selling up, but Cosworth as well is for sale, that does suprise me as I always thought it earned money as a research company.
Minardi and Jordon are now without engines for next year.

A friend sent me this information which may explain the source of the Chinese rumour and adds the most unlikely Dofasco angle. How much steel is in a modern F1 car anyway?
Autoracing1.com
Aug. 18, 2004
We did some more research and analysis on this sale and here is how we think it will be structured by HSBC who are responsible for the sale.    HSBC has not yet announced the sequencing of the sale but we have to believe that whoever buys the Jaguar F1 team will have first shot at buying Cosworth.  The team could end up in the hands of the Canadian steel company Dofasco, which is planning its own F1 program according to Grandprix.com and had been planning to build the team from nothing.  
Canada Phil