DECEMBER 4, 2008

Former F1 man becomes big cheese in Detroit

Ford may be on the verge of bankruptcy but it seems that such matters are not important in the overall scheme of things as it has just announced the appointment of Jost Capito as Director, Global Performance Vehicles and Motorsport Business Development. Capito will be based in Dearborn, Michigan where he will report to Hermann Salenbauch, Director of Advanced Product Creation and Performance Vehicles, and Brian Wolfe , Director North America Motor Sports.

Capito's role is newly created and he will be responsible for the global development of Ford's performance vehicles business. The North American SVT and European TeamRS performance vehicle programmes will be merged.

Capito is a racing man, beginning as a motorcycle rider on the Paris-Dakar and similar events. He then joined BMW Motorsport and spent four years as a development engineer on the BMW M3 programme. In 1990 he join Porsche's motorsport team and becme the head of Porsche Motorsport for a while before joining Sauber, where he became chief operating officer in 1999. Two years later he moved on to become director of Ford Special Vehicle Engineering in Cologne and headed Ford of Europe's motorsport programme, including the company's successful World Rally Championship efforts with the BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally team in 2006 and 2007. In November 2007, he moved on to a new role overseeing high performance road cars. His name was linked to the possible takover of Super Aguri by Martin Leach.