Why has Jaguar picked Formula E?

Jaguar is the fourth-most successful manufacturer in the history of the Le Mans 24 Hours. More than one big cat proved handy in touring car form as well. The less said about Formula 1 the better, but the British marque's pedigree is not to be sniffed at.

Why, then, when next year it takes to the grid for the first time since the curtain came down on its miserable five-year F1 programme, is its motor racing comeback manifesting itself in electric form?

The rumours have swirled around Jaguar and motorsport a lot in the past decade or so. Invariably, sportscars or touring cars were seen as the inevitable destination.

The 2010 Rocketsports XKR GT2 project came close, being a factory-blessed operation that put a Jaguar back on the Le Mans grid for the first time since 1995.

But Tata Motors, the owner of Jaguar Land Rover, needed something more tangible to show for investing in a motorsport project than another chapter in its illustrious history.

Jaguar's last major motorsport programme was the Rocketsports GT2 project © LAT

Jaguar Land Rover's director of group engineering Nick Rogers says "to be involved in racing is just the absolute ultimate", while team director James Barclay claims "there were very many relevant opportunities that could have been right for us".

We're getting warmer. The desire has certainly been there, but it's fair to say a return on investment has never been more important to manufacturer participation in motorsport. Real-world relevance and marketing value are crucial to that.

Would Jaguar tick those boxes from pumping £150million of Tata's money into an F1 project that yields questionable gains? Or half that, probably more, on taking on the Volkswagen group and Japanese giants in LMP1 to pick up hybrid tricks? It's debatable.

But if it matches Renault's rumoured €10million spend to succeed in Formula E and learns lessons that directly translate into a new range of electric vehicles, it has created value.

Engineers who gain important knowledge and experience from the racing programme will build the e-Jaguars and Land Rovers that roll out of the Midlands, and so racing is viewed as an important part of the research and development exercise - not to mention validation.

"The way the world is going to change with electrification, connected car, autonomous car, the opportunity to work in a racing environment gives us an opportunity to stress-test those things and push things to the limit," says Rogers, "and give some focus to some of the short, high-endurance test cycles you see through racing.

"There are two parts: energy storage and how much you can store and how efficiently you store, and how efficient is the propulsion system.

"Where better to try that than in a situation where you'll get incredible current drains at incredible rates driving and decelerating?"

Formula E's increasing development freedom is attractive to manufacturers © LAT

That Formula E teams are able to develop their own powertrains - which from a road-car manufacturer's perspective incorporates the electric motor, gearbox, inverter and cooling system - underpins all this. Jaguar says this is why it has chosen to join the championship for season three, because FE's technical roadmap allows it to bring in its own technology.

Efficiency is the main bugbear surrounding electric vehicles and Formula E has huge strides to make when it comes to erasing those doubts. Jaguar plans to put itself at the heart of that and learn, among other things, how you make an electric powertrain go further on less. Nowhere is efficiency as essential to victory as it is in Formula E.

If Jaguar couldn't develop its own powertrain, it wouldn't amass as much knowledge to filter into the road car range it's planning to produce. Sometimes it's difficult to detect synergy between a motorsport programme and a car maker's main line of business, but not here.

"It's a real balance of efficiency, and living in an ever carbon-conscious world it's what the future is all about," reckons Rogers. "It's really exciting, being an automotive engineer is incredibly challenging but awesomely exciting. We're going to solve problems people didn't even know they had."

That's the technological side. Now back to the cost argument.

When the Jaguar name withdrew from F1 at the end of the 2004 season, it was a result of then-parent company Ford reining in costs by pulling its brands, which at the time included engine supplier Cosworth, from the top tier of motorsport.

The Tata group's purchase of Jaguar Land Rover from Ford in 2008 has been a big factor in bringing the brand to the point where it is building up to its racing return. The cost of competing in Formula E was a big factor in helping it decide the series in which it would make that return - paddock rumours are putting the required investment from Renault to become the leading Formula E team at around €10million.

Jaguar's F1 stint was not a success © LAT

"Us coming as a full works team was a really important factor in our next choice in motorsport," says team director Barclay. "It's crucial to be in control of what we do.

"While Formula E's still significant investment, in comparison to others out there it represents good value for money. From an investment point of view Formula E is well-managed and structured and it's part of the appeal."

It's a bit of a stretch to say without it Jaguar would not be back in motorsport, because of the claims that there were other serious options, but ultimately that's neither here nor there.

The point is it chose Formula E. And it did so because in the automotive world it is the latest manufacturer to throw its weight behind electric vehicles. That has huge symbolic significance, particularly for Formula E. The championship has its detractors, but its booming manufacturer interest cannot be ignored and Jaguar serves as the ultimate validation of all-electric racing as a concept.

No disrespect to Renault (e.dams), VW/Audi (with Abt) and Citroen (through the DS brand's Virgin tie-up), but they already had significant motorsport programmes elsewhere. The likes of Mahindra and Venturi are electric vehicle specialists, so their participation is no surprise.

But with Jaguar Land Rover, the championship has attracted a manufacturer that isn't in motorsport and doesn't have a pre-existing EV range. That's why series CEO Alejandro Agag called it "the biggest announcement we've done."

On the horizon is another manufacturer announcement, according to Agag. When it comes, it will almost certainly cite similar logic to Jaguar.

And the Formula E juggernaut, and the growing influence of electric vehicles, will gain even more momentum.