In May 2003, FIA President Max Mosley warned that Grand Prix racing is not the car industry's core business and that we as fans of the sport could count on only one thing: that manufacturers would come and go as they please, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Honda, Renault, Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Porsche, all having strutted their hour upon the stage and abandoned ship when it suited their corporate purposes. Atlas F1's Thomas O'Keefe traces the latest example of an auto giant pursuing its perceived self-interest, in the wake of Ford Motor Company's stunning announcement that it would discontinue its Jaguar Formula One operations and Cosworth engine works

I remember walking into the paddock at Silverstone for the 2000 British Grand Prix, the particularly soggy one that so alienated Bernie Ecclestone, where the conditions were so bad that even a Land Rover got stuck in trying to retrieve David Coulthard's McLaren. What first struck my eye filled me with pride. There amidst the glamorous motorhomes, a huge, gleaming, leaping Jaguar made of chrome was positioned on top of the Jaguar motorhome, the same hood ornament that had made Jaguar cars so famous, but on steroids and looming over the paddock.

The Jaguar Formula One team had barely seven races under its belt since being formed out of the ashes of Stewart Grand Prix. Johnny Herbert in a Stewart-Ford had brought home a thrilling and unlikely victory at a wet/dry Nurburgring race less than six months earlier in November 1999 so it seemed that the team had turned the corner: who would have thought at that juncture that the resources of what was until recently the worlds second largest auto manufacturer – Ford Motor Company – could not match, let alone outdistance, the solitary victory of the Stewart team from which this cat had sprung.

It has been a pathetic and cynical performance by the Blue Oval, the way they have tarnished the once-proud leaping cat mascot, the way Ford has failed to provide adequate support to its corporate step-child. If this were Family Court, the way Jaguar has been treated by Ford would be an open and shut case of child abuse and neglect.

Don't get me wrong. I love Jaguar and no one wanted them to succeed more than me, as an American hooked on British sports cars at a young age. I have owned several early, rustbucket Jaguar XJ6's and E-Types, purchased with a glimmer of the dorsal-finned D-types at LeMans in my mind's eye. No matter how many times the Lucas electrics or the cooling systems have failed me in these cars, the hypochondriacs of the sport car set, I love them still.

When it was announced that an American, Bobby Rahal, was to become team principal of Jaguar on the eve of the inaugural 2000 US Grand Prix, I thought for sure that now we would see something from the team since Rahal was one of those rare individuals who had done it all and done it all successfully and without alienating anyone: a winner of the Indianapolis 500, a CART Champion when that meant something and, after retirement as driver, still a winner as a CART team owner. Along the way he had raced in Europe himself and in Formula One for the Wolf team, so surely the ingredients for Jaguar becoming a contender were now in place (See Man in the Catbird Seat). A side benefit to having an American as team principal could also mean that the Jaguar team would end up becoming a portal for an American driver to come up in the sport.

But it turned out that Rahal came into a bad situation not of his own making. Jackie Stewart had already hired ex-Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine as Jaguar's star driver and that was not destined to be a match made in heaven. Rahal also quickly perceived that the weak aerodynamics of the existing car would doom it to failure no matter who was driving it, so he went to his longest-standing friend in the F1 paddock – Adrian Newey of McLaren, whom Rahal had known from their days together in the Indycars, and the two of them decided the time was right for a Big Move. Newey for his part was disenchanted and feeling as if it were time to leave the womb of McLaren and looked forward to a new challenge with his old friend.

But neither Rahal nor Newey has the conniving constitution of a corporate raider type and both would soon be crushed by McLaren's lawyers, who clearly got the message from Ron Dennis to pull out all the stops to keep Newey on board whether he wanted to stay or not. No one hates losing like Ron Dennis and, in the end, some form of secret financial settlement was entered into and Newey was sent back to his box of pencils and drafting board at Woking. Rahal tried to re-cast the team in other ways, undermined throughout his efforts by the unhelpful insertion by Ford higher-ups of Niki Lauda, ex-Ferrari, ex-McLaren, RTL TV commentator who Ford for some reason thought was tailor-made for bringing order out of chaos – the "Austrian" way vs. the "American" way is the way Lauda's makeover was characterized. Lauda gradually froze out Rahal but proved to be better at corporate infighting than running a Formula One team since Lauda failed too.

Both Rahal and Lauda were further victimized by Ford's insistence on navel-gazing, soul-searching bureaucrats who came in to assess why the team was a mess, but in an environment as dynamic and yet fragile as a Formula One team, no amount of Business School theorizing is ever going to point the way as to why some teams gel and some do not.

In other words, Ford has made every mistake in the book in its Jaguar Formula One Program, and will now convert the promising Tony Purnell from team principal to Receiver, presiding over a distress sale as to both Jaguar and Cosworth's assets. This is the saddest auction since Bernie Ecclestone bought two Connaught chassis from the Connaught Liquidation sale on September 17, 1957, that he used to race in the 1958 Grand Prix season. Indeed, I wonder if Bernie will be bidding again since he may need those Jaguar/Cosworth assets to make up a 20-car grid in 2005!

So that is how it turned out so poorly, but why did Ford pull the plug now and could it have all turned out differently?

Why now? It is the Economy, stupid, or more precisely the price of Ford's stock on the New York Stock Exchange (stock symbol "F"), which has been trading from as low as $10 to a high of $17 during the last year and consistently trails behind GM and DaimlerChrysler's stock, which tend to trade at $40 or more. I assure you it is no coincidence that while we in Formula One were feeling shockwaves from Jaguar's announcement on Friday, September 17, 2004, on that same day they were whooping it up at One American Road, Dearborn, Michigan, because management could see the favorable headlines from the New York Times: "Ford Raises Earnings Forecast and Unveils New Plan for Jaguar" and "Shares Rise on Ford's Optimistic Forecast on Earnings."

Along with improved earnings from Ford's "financial services" group, lancing a boil like the Jaguar Formula One operation along with closing the historic Browns Lane Jaguar factory where all my old Jaguars were built, was the kind of "costs savings" that 27 year-old analysts in the City and on Wall Street demand as their pound of flesh before giving a favorable forecast for a stock.

Ford's September 17th press release and Investor Presentation, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") was plainly written with the bean counters and stock analysts in mind:

"On September 17, 2004, Ford Motor Company decided to exit Formula One racing and to sell its Formula One racing operations within the next year, as market conditions warrant. In accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, those racing operations are being classified as discontinued operations and we will incur an impairment charge estimated at about $275 million pre-tax. Ford Motor Company [also] committed to plans to close the final assembly operations at Browns Lane in Coventry, England and reduce salaried staffing levels at its Jaguar operations. Browns Lane is currently used for final assembly of Jaguar XJ and Jaguar XK model cars."

And oh, by the way, Mr. Ford, Chairman of the Board: much as I love Jaguars, I will not be ordering one of those Jaguar X-Type Estate Wagons being introduced to boost Jaguar sales with soccer moms, knowing that the price for all that Connelly leather and Wilton carpet is the decline of Formula One as a sacrifice on the alter of the stock market. The Blue Oval makes me blue.

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