Rahal heads for D-Day talks over Jaguar future

Sources suggest that Rahal, who took charge of the Jaguar team last December, will be asked to leave after disagreements with Niki Lauda, who was given the helm of Ford's Premier Performance Division by Jaguar Cars chairman Wolfgang Reitzle in February.

At the time, Lauda said his role would help smooth the waters at a higher management level so Rahal could concentrate on the task at hand.

Despite his role as overseeing all of the division's companies - Jaguar Racing, Cosworth and Pi Research - Lauda has had the biggest impact on the Big Cat's race team. The top heavy management structure appears to have led to disagreements over the running of the Jaguar Racing outfit, including issues such as the loss of exclusive Cosworth engines from next year and the breakdown of negotiations to lure designer Adrian Newey away from McLaren.

Jaguar has scored only five points so far this year, and tensions came to a head at last weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix when it came to light that Rahal had offered to sell his number one driver, Eddie Irvine, to Jordan to take Heinz-Harald Frentzen's vacant seat.

Irvine's form has taken a recent downturn and he has been outqualified for the last three races by team mate Pedro de la Rosa. The Ulsterman's Hungarian GP ended after a mistake put him into the gravel at first corner, but Rahal insists he did not want to get rid of the 35-year-old and has shrugged off the Jordan offer as a joke.

"I have defended Eddie when he needed defending and I don't know if I have ever been critical," Rahal told Autosport. "Whereas there have been some critical comments attributed to this team about him, I think I have been very proactive towards him. The guy is fast and today [Sunday] wasn't the best day to be sure, but he has always done a good job, a very good job, and if anybody has defended him it has been me."

Lauda is thought to have blocked Rahal's move to place Irvine at Jordan, and the Austrian was angered by not being informed of the offer. The matter could be viewed as the final straw that leads to Rahal's ultimate demise.