Ford increases pressure on Jaguar

Jaguar Racing parent company Ford has given the Formula 1 team an ultimatum which will increase speculation that the car giant is preparing to pull the plug on its grand prix racing assault

New Ford chief executive Nick Scheele wants answers from chief technical officer Richard Parry-Jones on how to raise the performance levels of the struggling team, according to Autoweek.

"I have given Richard Parry-Jones 12 weeks to tell me what we have to do to fix it to become podium material," said Scheele. "It's fair to say that F1 is not doing for Jaguar's image what we had hoped. But if there is anyone going to get hold of the situation it will be Richard."

The new aerodynamic package on the R3 appeared to give Jaguar a boost at last weekend's French GP, with Eddie Irvine qualifying a season-best ninth. But his rear wing failure in the race angered team boss Niki Lauda, who is coming under increasing pressure to turn the team's fortunes around.

According to Ford's chief financial officer, Allan Gilmour, opinions on Jaguar in F1 are split within the parent company. "If you want to raise blood pressure around here, you'll do it when you discuss F1 because there are no neutral people," he told sportbusiness.com.

"This is a high visibility sport related to automotive products. The other view is no, we don't need to be doing this. It is interesting and exciting but it's terribly expensive."