TEAM HISTORY

Mid-way through the 1999 season, Ford purchased the Stewart outfit and immediately announced their intention to run the cars as Jaguars. Thus, in 2000 the tartan gave way to British Racing Green, and Johnny Herbert was joined by Ferrari refugee Eddie Irvine. The fledgling Stewart team, founded by triple world champion Jackie Stewart, had its debut season in 1997. After much media interest and hype the team soon found F1 life was no easy ride. Crippled by a series of mechanical problems, the 1997 season was an unmitigated disaster - the one exception being a superb second place for Barrichello at Monaco. Despite high hopes, the 1998 season was marred by similar struggles and even with the slightly harsh removal of driver Jan Magnussen, the team actually fared worse than in their rookie season. For 1999 Ford provided Stewart with their latest engine, the CR1. With Johnny Herbert joining Barrichello it looked as though the tartan terrors were about to hit the big time. As it was, it turned out to be a season of mixed emotions. In Australia, both cars caught fire on the grid - meaning that only Barrichello could make the re-start. Whilst later in the year, Johnny Herbert took the team's first (and only) victory. If Ford thought they were in for an easy ride in 2000, they were very much mistaken. An uncompetitive chassis coupled with an unreliable gearbox and poor team management left the team struggling at the wrong end of the grid. Although both Irvine and Herbert gave their all, the R1 was a bit of a disaster. For 2001 Irvine was joined by Brazilian Luciano Burti, with Tomas Scheckter and Pedro de la Rosa assuming test duties. It was all change just four races in to the year however, with the departure of Burti enabling Jaguar to promote de la Rosa to the race team; a move which the Spaniard had originally been promised for 2002. With the other major car manufacturers such as Mercedes, Toyota, Renault, BMW and Honda seeking to establish themselves as number one, Ford have their work cut out in the years to come. Eddie Irvine and Pedro de la Rosa had a miserable time with the Jaguar R3. Its failure heralded major changes in the team including an overthrow of the technical team at the beginning of the year, followed by the exit of Irvine, de la Rosa and then Lauda at the end of the year. Mark Webber and Antonio Pizzonia had to make strides in 2003 to keep Ford interested in F1, but while Webber succeeded in doing so, Pizzonia did not. The Brazilian was replaced with five races remaining, while Webber went on to score 17 of the teams 18 points. The other one point coming from Pizzonia’s replacement, Justin Wilson. But in keeping with Jaguar tradition, Wilson was out at the end of the year and replaced by Christian Klien, a rookie with cash and for Jag’s sake, hopefully some talent as well. On 15th of November 2004, the Jaguar Racing-team was sold to Red Bull. Ford decided earlier in September to end their participation in Formula One after 40 years history in F1. The Jaguar-team will continue in 2005 as Red Bull Racing. Ford also decided to sell Cosworth to Champcar owner Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerry Forsythe. Red Bull will continue to use the Cosworth engine in 2005.