18/09/2004
NEWS STORY
With the corpse still warm, and following on from his earlier comments, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has laid into Jaguar, and basically followed on from remarks he made several weeks ago when he said that Jaguar shouldn't be in F1.
Ecclestone blames bad management and accuses the Ford-owned outfit of never taking the sport seriously.
"It's down to bad management," he said, "and shows that manufacturers just use the sport if and when they want to. It appears they wanted to run a team and get all the publicity but not pay any money for it. I'd like to see them try to do a deal where they get all their global advertising for free.
"They have ripped off Jordan and Minardi with the price of their engines," he continued. "They cost more than those Ferrari sell to Sauber but are not capable of running at the front.
"I'm not sorry to see them go," he revealed. "They made their name in SportsCar racing and that doesn't interest me. Jaguar came into F1 to suit themselves and have left to suit themselves.
"I would rather see three Ferraris, McLarens or Williams running at the front than a Jaguar fighting it out with Jordan and Minardi."
With regards to the (inflated) cost of engines, this is the same Mr Ecclestone who was able to create a whole formula (F3000) having bought up virtually the entire stock of - cue irony - Ford Cosworth DFV F1 engines. The same Mr Ecclestone who has now sanctioned that F3000 be replaced by GP2, which just happens to use old Renault F1 engines, willingly supplied by Flavio Briatore.
There is much that Jaguar has done wrong. However, other than a few errors of judgement (diamonds in Monaco) the team appeared to be finally getting it right, certainly as far as its management is concerned. The biggest problem with Jaguar was Ford, which has a long history of screwing things up.
However, it would be totally wrong for Bernie to walk away from this feeling that he doesn't have blood on his hands, he does, in fact he's drenched in it.
The reliance on the car manufacturers - or rather their money - is something he has been warned about repeatedly in the past, but has chosen to ignore. He welcomes new manufacturers with open arms then pours scorn on them a couple of years later when they decide that enough is enough.