17/09/2004
NEWS STORY
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has admitted that he was not surprised by today's announcement that Ford is pulling out of the sport and putting both Jaguar Racing and Cosworth up for sale. Indeed, the Englishman feels that the Milton Keynes based outfit shouldn't have been in F1 this year.
"It was inevitable and wasn't really a shock to me," he told Reuters. "They couldn't really afford to be running around at the back of the grid with the likes of Jordan. They should have been up front with Ferrari and BMW (Williams), the top teams.
"I don't think they had the necessary financial investment to be competitive," he added, "and in my opinion they shouldn't have run this year at all."
Referring to the announcement that the Ford-owned company is making a number of drastic changes to its road car programme, including the closure of its famous Coventry plant, Ecclestone said: "They obviously have problems and they're closing a factory so it would have been a bit cheeky to keep the Formula One factory going in those circumstances."
Asked if he though a potential buyer might be found, he replied: "You never know, 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.
"Formula One is very expensive business these days," he added, "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."
Referring to the decision to sell Cosworth, a move that has sent shockwaves around the entire motorsport world, Ecclestone said: "They supply two series in America as well as the three teams in Formula One so hopefully there will be a buyer and everything will be OK.
"If no one buys Cosworth and it goes out of business then Jordan and Minardi are in serious trouble," he said.
"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 admitted. "There's provision for the teams to run three cars and that would perhaps give us 20 competitive cars on the grid next season."