Formula1 2004 (Ferrari and Michael Schumacher champions)

Ferrari can already today win the Constructors championship.

Jaguar will cease car production at its Browns Lane plant in Coventry with the loss of more than 1,150 jobs, the US car giant Ford said today.

About 750 of the redundancies will be compulsory; 400 will be offered on voluntary terms. There will be 400 new openings at the new Aston Martin plant at Gaydon, Warwickshire, while another 400 workers will transfer to Castle Bromwich in Birmingham.

Jaguar, one of Ford's luxury car brands, said the voluntary redundancies would be on the "best ever" terms given by the company and that a "substantial" programme of support would be given to workers affected.

The firm said there would be a potential net loss of 100 manufacturing jobs as a result of today's announcement.

Union leaders were given the news at a meeting with senior Ford and Jaguar executives in the West Midlands. They condemned the move and vowed to "fight like tigers" to keep the manufacture of quality cars in the UK.

The Transport and General Workers' Union and Amicus said they were concerned the decision could lead to further closures in the future. They warned that they intended to "draw a line in the sand" to prevent any further job cuts.

Jaguar said production of its XJ saloon and XK sports models would transfer to its factory at Castle Bromwich. Coventry would remain its home and Browns Lane would continue to be its headquarters.

Browns Lane, regarded as Jaguar's "spiritual home", will continue to employ 310 staff making polished veneer panels for the company's famed leather-and-wood interiors.


The plant, which opened in 1951, employs 2,000 people. Some of Jaguar's most distinctive brands, notably the E-Type, came from the factory.

Jaguar, acquired by Ford in 1989, was supposed to be a major source of profits for the US firm but has become a financial drag because of falling US sales, owing to the strong pound, and high operating costs.

Ford's car and truck sales are down 4.5% so far this year, though one bright spot has been good sales of the F-150 pick-up, which was revamped last year.

"There's no way that in the long term this company can succeed without at least stable market share, if not growing share," said John Casesa, an analyst from Merrill Lynch.

Jaguar also announced that it would be withdrawing from Formula One racing at the end of the year, saying it was time "to focus 100%" on its core business.

Editorial

Three-Car Teams - The Prospect Grows Nearer
Saturday September 18 2004
With the withdrawal of Jaguar from F1 at the end of the season we could be facing a grid of 18 cars in 2005. Or it might be even less...Jaguar and the team's engine suppliers Cosworth are now for sale and while Cosworth is very likely to continue as an engine builder in some shape or form, it's very likely that Jordan and Minardi will have to pay more for their engines.

Should that be the case, and the already financially strained independent teams call it a day, then we might be faced with a situation where F1 is reduced to just seven teams.

Though Bernie Ecclestone has tried to put an ?'I saw it all coming' spin on Ford's shock announcement to put the Jaguar team up for sale, to a large part it's 20/20 hindsight.

Ford had given the team a date by which it had to justify its existence, but even two weeks ago the motorsport ?'bible' Autosport were suggesting that Ford might replace Jaguar with a Ford-branded superteam.

Although there are often ?'potential buyers' on the horizon when an F1 team comes up for sale, there hasn't been an independent team join F1 since Prost and Stewart in 1997.

When Prost came on the market in 2001 and Arrows became available through 2002, no serious bidders materialised, though it was rumoured that Jacques Villeneuve's manager, Craig Pollock, got closer than most.

Then, as now, there were rumours of Middle East-backed syndicates wishing to gain entry to F1, but when push came to shove nothing happened. Eddie Jordan, who was thought to be selling his team to a Dubai-based consortium, is still waiting to hear (or announce).

With Jaguar coming on the market at what could be a knock-down rate it is a far more competitive outfit to secure than Jordan, though from an operational point of view, EJ's team will be leaner, even if they're not meaner.

Ecclestone, the greatest financial beneficiary from F1 and one of the world's richest men as a result of his management of the sport, says he saw it all coming.
"It was inevitable and it wasn't really a shock to me," he said after Jaguar owners Ford announced on Friday that they were to sell the team.

"They couldn't afford to run around at the back of the grid and in my opinion shouldn't have run this year at all. They obviously have problems and they're closing a factory so it would have been a bit cheeky to keep the F1 factory going in those circumstances."

Ecclestone has resisted all attempts by the teams to get a greater share of the massive revenues generated by F1 (with the possible exception of Ferrari, who many believe have been paid extra to leave the rival GPWC series bid). Whenever teams are believed to be in financial trouble the head of Formula One Management, which administers the commercial rights on behalf of SLEC (a holding company owned by three merchant banks and Ecclestone) says it's the teams who must cut costs.
And just as he has been saying for the last two years - assisted by Max Mosley, who as president of the FIA should not be getting involved in the commercial running of the sport - it's the teams' fault for not cutting costs.

Rather than dig deep in his pockets Ecclestone wants the teams to save money and he likes to paint a gloomy picture of what will happen unless they do.
"I know there are people interested but I don't know whether they will be able to make the necessary financial investment any more than Ford could," he said. "F1 is a very expensive business these days and we need to reduce the amount of money it takes to be competitive.

"Teams could still spend whatever they wanted, but the amount of money needed to compete would be less."

To a certain extent, he has a point. If the teams were given $500m instead of $300m (or whatever the secret figure actually is) they would just go and spend it all on making their cars faster. F1 teams are super-competitive and are all about winning. And if they need to get into a spending war with another team to outbid them for the services of a top aerodynamicist, or get hold of some super-dense ballast material, they will.

High spending tends to polarise the big money teams (though Toyota can be excepted here) from the low-spending teams, to the extent that F1 becomes like European football clubs with the high revenue clubs affording all the best players and buying success.

In Europe there is a core of big money teams such as Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus and Inter Milan who dominate their leagues (in the Premiership Newcastle are Toyota - great players, lots of money, no success). The more money the teams get, the more likely the differences.

And though Ecclestone isn't trying to hang onto his cash for this reason, the reduction of F1 costs has another effect. If teams don't need to generate so much money from sponsorship to compete in F1, then they can look for drivers with ability, not drivers with cash. As a result there would be an improvement in the driving talent on the grid and greater competition in races.

Though Cosworth's sale to a harder-nosed owner may hasten the end of Minardi, the Concorde Agreement has a provision that should the grid fall below 16 cars, then the remaining teams are obliged to run extra cars to make up the difference.

So we could see a situation where Ferrari, Williams, McLaren, Renault and Toyota run three cars in 2005. Losing Jaguar, Jordan and Minardi would be dreadful but there is a potential upside, as Bernie has alluded to.

"I'm sorry that it's happened because we don't need to lose the Ford Motor Company, but there could be an upside," he said. "There are provisions (in the Concorde Agreement) for the teams to run three cars and that would perhaps give us 20 competitive cars on the grid next season."

For the hardened F1 fan the tactical implications of three cars per team are mindblowing. Ross Brawn would certainly have the chance to deliver the first Ferrari 1-2-3 since Enzo was bolting them together. It's nothing new, either. Back in the 1950s we had a Mercedes Benz 1-2-3-4 at the British GP at Aintree.

However the political consequences of having just seven or eight teams left in F1 will be enormous. The remaining teams will have much more power. At the moment Max Mosley is trying to fly in the face of the Concorde Agreement that says F1 will have three-litre V10s until the agreement expires in 2007. Two teams, McLaren and Williams, don't want to switch to 2.4 litre engines, which Mosley is insisting they do for speed/safety reasons. It will be difficult for the FIA and FOM to say to the teams that they have to provide three cars - because it says so in the Concorde Agreement - when they are blatantly trying to override other areas of that agreement.

As for Toyota - should Jaguar, Jordan and Minardi exit the paddock, then they will be the new Minardi, the slowest team on the grid. The Japanese loss of face in that situation might just be too much to bear.

Frank Hopkinson

Sir Jackie Stewart, one of the sport's legendary names, yesterday pleaded with Bernie Ecclestone and the Government to "think again" after the British Grand Prix was dropped from the provisional 2005 Formula One calendar.

The dropping of the oldest race on the world championship schedule followed irreconcilable differences between F1's commercial rights holder, Ecclestone, and the British Racing Drivers' Club, who own the Silverstone circuit.

Stewart, who is the BDRC's president, said: "We regret that the Government, unlike governments in almost every other country which host a grand prix, have not been able to pull together a package to help the retention of the grand prix in this country.

"Even at this late stage we would ask Mr Ecclestone and the Government to think again and see if we can retain the grand prix for the sake of the industry, sport and the country."

Ecclestone was not in a consolatory mood. "We're not dealing with businessmen ­ were dealing with an gentlemen's club, which is a bit short of gentlemen actually. They [the BDRC] should be running tennis," he said last night.

The collapse of talks and the BRDC's failure to come up with the fee Ecclestone requires from European race organisers have removed Britain's most important motor racing event after an unbroken run of 54 years.

"I have 17 contracts with race sites which I will put forward to

the world council of the FIA [the sport's governing body] for ratification on 13 October as the calendar for the 2005 season, and the British Grand Prix is not among them," Ecclestone said .

The British Grand Prix opened the world championship

in 1950, but the BRDC has come under increasing threat as anti-tobacco legislation started to drive the sport further afield.

The Chinese government invested $240m (£132.5m) in the opulent venue for last weekend's inaugural Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai, and a further $40m per year fee for Ecclestone. "There is no way we can ever compete with that kind of funding," said Stewart, the former triple world champion.

Ecclestone wanted £8.9m from the BRDC to stage the

2005 event. The BRDC's chief executive, Alex Hooten, said he was hopeful that a counter offer, believed to be £6m, would be acceptable to Ecclestone. "Our offer falls short of what Mr Ecclestone requires but it is an offer that doesn't offer any real prospect of making any profit at all. Indeed, it exposes us to making a considerable loss," he said.

However, Ecclestone ­ who once said of Silverstone, "It is like an old house that claims to need only a few repairs. Actually it needs major reconstruction. I don't see a future for it" ­ warned the BRDC not to play hardball. "I am the wrong guy to play hardball with. I have had a lot of practice and I'm pretty good at it."

Hooten said the only help the BRDC received from the Government was to help negotiations with Ecclestone, but hoped ministers might make up the shortfall. That is unlikely after the furore surrounding Tony Blair's newly formed leadership back in 1997 when Ecclestone donated £1m to New Labour.

Stewart warns that losing the British GP could cost the country its technological superiority in motor sport. "If we lose it, we will lose the industry in a matter of six to 10 years, maximum."

After the prolonged, acrimonious arguments, it was inevitable that the British GP had to die in order to live again. But all may not be lost. There is a suggestion that the FIA's statutes contain a covenant to protect key historical races ­ Britain, Italy, Monaco and France. Both the French and Canadian GPs were left off the initial provisional calendars for 2004, but each found the necessary funding at the 11th hour.

Ecclestone has made it clear that while there is no leeway to include the race in the 17 grand prix he is contractually obliged to offer to the FIA, an accommodation could be reached. "If I were to receive a signed contract from Silverstone, I would then have to go to all the teams and ask if they were prepared to participate in 18 races," he said. "If they want 18, I couldn't care less. It's Britain, it's possible."

The British GP may be given a reprieve if the funding is sourced before the world council meets to ratify the calendar on 13 October. But Ecclestone said he had no objection to the race being reinstated for 2006.