Ford restructure V8 commitment

Ford confirmed V8 Supercar would remain their biggest single Australian sponsorship ahead of other local sporting commitments including the Geelong football team in the Australian Football League and the Australian cricket team.

"Motorsport is a key part of our brand strength in Australia," said Mark Winslow, marketing and sales vice president for Ford Australia.

"The passion it generates amongst performance car enthusiasts is second-to-none, which is why it will continue to be important for our brand going forward."

"Like we do with our involvement with the Geelong Football Club, Cricket Australia and the National Breast Cancer Foundation, we will be looking to more proactively tie our motorsport sponsorship to relevant brand communications - particularly across our performance vehicle range."

However, they also confirmed that they would also be reducing the number of teams they support, with teams such as Jim Beam Racing, run by long-time Ford stalwart Dick Johnson, and Team Vodafone, run by Triple Eight Race Engineering, the major losers in the new deal.

The two teams to continue to receive support will be the factory Ford Performance Racing outfit run by David Richards' Prodrive and Stone Brothers Racing, these two teams forging further alliances under the new deal.

"A closer collaboration between Ford Performance Racing and Stone Brothers Racing will have race-win benefits for Ford, while also allowing us to be more involved in the positioning and marketing of the Ford brand in association with those two teams," said Winslow.

"Both teams will continue to run at least two cars each in the V8 Supercar Championship and all four of them will be predominantly blue, which will make them easily recognisable as Ford-supported vehicles.

While Ford Perfomance Racing's continued support was a given, the decision to choose Stone Brothers Racing ahead of Team Vodafone and Jim Beam Racing may surprise a few.

Stone Brothers Racing were the leading Ford team in the first five years of the decade, winning three consecutive V8 Supercar titles in 2003, 2004 and 2005. But after two-time champion Marcos Ambrose left at the end of 2005, the team has failed to win a single championship race.

It should be noted however that most of the leading Ford teams use Stone Brothers engines in their cars.

However, in that same period Team Vodafone has won 20 races (FPR with 13 wins), with its drivers finishing second and tenth in the 2006 championship, second and third in the 2007 title, and currently sit third and fifth in this year's championship.

They were also part of the group (along with Ford Performance Racing and Stone Brothers Racing) that produced the new FG Falcon race car.

With one win since 2006, Jim Beam Racing has a win more than Stone Brothers, however it was not this success but the ties that were forged between Ford and Dick Johnson with 'the rock' incident in the early 1980s that most felt would see their link continue.

Ford is not completely abandoning the teams they currently sponsor but won't in the future, as they will receive initial FG race car shells when the car is introduced, be part of a crash panel program and receive ongoing engineering and technical support.

The maker will also continue to sponsor the Formula Ford category.