Red Bull closes in on Jag

Sources close to Jaguar have confirmed that Red Bull is back in talks with the team with a view to a swift purchase of the outfit, even though a deal to buy it earlier this year was scuppered at the last minute by Ford's financial chiefs in Detroit. Mateschitz is understood to have put that disappointment behind him and changed his mind about abandoning attempts to set up his own team.

He is believed to be evaluating several options for his company in F1 next year, ranging from buying the Jaguar team outright and it becoming the official Red Bull Grand Prix team, to maintaining his sponsorship of Sauber or even pulling out of F1 completely and switching his focus to United States racing.

When asked about whether a buy-out of Jaguar was on the cards, Mateschitz said on Wednesday: "Nothing is impossible and everything can be done. Talks are going on and at the moment there are several possibilities we are looking at."

Jaguar owner Ford has not set a deadline of when it wants to complete the sale of the team, but Mateschitz appears to favour a swift resolution to the issue. He believes that if he is to create his own team in time for the start of 2005 then he needs to get the green light from Ford within the next two weeks.

Although Mateschitz was originally only interested in plans for his own 'All American F1 Team' if it could be done in conjunction with Ford, there are suggestions that his latest attempt may revolve around a supply of customer Toyota engines.

The Japanese car manufacturer has made no secret of the fact that it will be happy to supply a second team in F1 if there was a genuine 'engine crisis' and an insider at the team suggested that its engine department has already been told to gear up for customer supplies in 2005.

The major hurdle to be overcome if 'Jaguar' is to switch to Toyota engines next year is the fact that the team has already completed much of the work on its R6 contender based around next year's Cosworth engine. The interim R5B, featuring next year's transmission and gearbox, is due to run at Jerez in Spain next week.

Although it is not impossible for the team to make modifications to the car to fit a Toyota engine, the work would require considerable financial outlay. One source close to the team told autosport.com: "I think we would find it extremely difficult to install a Toyota engine by Melbourne next year. Re-jigging the car now would mean an enormous expense."

The choice of Toyota engines would almost certainly signal the end of Ford's engine manufacturer Cosworth, whose hopes of supplying engines in F1 would depend on a major financial input from a partner team. That would be bad news for Jordan and Minardi, who were both due to run with customer Cosworth engines next year. Minardi has facilities to run its own version of old Cosworth engines if it needs to, while Jordan would have to hope that another manufacturer is willing to come forward and supply customer engines.

A Red Bull-owned team would provide a Formula 1 lifeline to Jaguar's current driver Christian Klien and International F3000 Champion Vitantonio Liuzzi, who are both backed by the energy drinks company. They would be favourite to secure both seats, although the team may also be in favour of an experienced driver like David Coulthard.