Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Taking Over The Jaguar Program From RSR

After reading this post from one of my favorite web sites Last Turn Club, it got me to thinking, just who should take over this failure of an operation from an embattled Paul Gentilozzi and the team his son runs, RSR?

The Jaguar Program has been a massive disappointment on all fronts, it has yet to run a complete race without spending at least several laps on pit lane or in the garage area. How is this suppose to improve Jaguar's Motorsport Image or its public image in which parent company Ford spent massive amounts of engineering dollars helping the Coventry based company improve its stock among affluent car buyers?

Using Motorsports to change your company's image has worked very well for companies like Audi. Where was Audi in terms of popularity in this country in the mid 80's? So it can work.

What Jaguar Marketing needs to do TODAY, NOW is develop a short list of current or mothballed racing operations that could do justice to this program.

I have one specific team in mind. A team that has been in the ALMS rumor mill for about 2 years but only recently dropped from mention.

That would be Forsythe Racing; Let me explain why...

Gerald Forsythe, along with Kevin Kalkhoven are majority owners of Cosworth. Cosworth built Jaguar F1's engine (back when owned by Ford) and was the one bright spots in the whole program. One of the main problems with RSR's in-house built engines is reliability. Going against well funded operations such as Porsche Motorsports, BMW Motorsports and GM Power-train; you need your own "firepower" as it were.

Forsythe has his own corporate empire and after spending over 20 years running a front-line CART/CCWS Program, I think they are perfectly suited for the job. On top of that, they have previously shown interest in having a ALMS team.

Do we put pressure on Jaguar USA to do the right thing by their brand? Tell me in the comments below.



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