FEBRUARY 13, 2002
A year is a (very) long time in politics
A year ago this week Niki Lauda was appointed the head of Ford's Premier Performance Division and put in charge of Jaguar Racing, Cosworth Racing and Pi Electronics.
The new Jaguar R3 is, by all accounts, a disaster and technical director Steve Nichols has already departed.
Lauda is fighting fires but the general consensus in F1 is that there will be further departures in the months ahead and there are very serious fears that the Ford Motor Company bosses may simply overruled Jaguar Cars boss Wolfgang Reitzle and ditch the whole F1 program.
Rahal was not happy to be ousted last summer as he felt that he had not been given a fair chance but he is now delighted not to be involved and is talking about a plan to run a team at Le Mans. Rahal raced at Le Mans as a driver on three occasions and would now like to try and win the French classic as a team owner.