In what was a crucial date for Jaguar, the Milton Keynes team finally introduced their revised R3B car at the British Grand Prix last Sunday. But the new machine continued to languish at the bottom of the field. While most point their fingers at the team, Karl Ludvigsen believes the main problem is being overlooked, and reveals more details on the Ford-backed team's technical plight

Cosworth Racing has a lot to thank Jaguar for. Jaguar Racing has taken all the flak for the team's poor performance, which plumbed the depths at Silverstone. All the criticism focuses on the failings of Jaguar as a team. Truth to tell, it's not all that surprising. Here we are half-way through Jaguar's third season and the team has fallen to its lowest level in memory. It's easy to ridicule Jaguar, as Eddie Jordan reportedly did when he heard that Niki Lauda was taking over the struggling team: "When Niki joined Jaguar he redefined that old seafaring phrase: When did you ever see a rat join a sinking ship?"

This has all been to the huge benefit of Ford's Cosworth Racing (as distinct from Cosworth Technology, which is owned by Audi). I was amused by an interview at Silverstone with a Cosworth man, who said that his company could offer three different stages of evolution of its V-10 to suit the budgets of various teams. I wondered what those evolution stages were. Are they (1) uncompetitive, (2) even less competitive and (3) not at all competitive? Underlying the relatively poor performance of both Arrows and Jaguar is the lack of power and reliability from their Cosworth engines.

I don't need to underline the lack of performance by Cosworth Racing. When has Cosworth last provided a fully competitive Formula One engine? Sometime in the 1970s, I would guess. The company is coasting on its great reputation, earned in the days of the DFV. The poor performances of 2001 and 2002 - compounded by major engine blowups - are jeopardizing Cosworth's hard-won reputation for excellence in racing engines. The only thing that's saving Cosworth's bacon - as I said earlier - is that the critics are focusing on the problems of Jaguar as a team and overlooking the fact that you can't do much in racing if you haven't a decent engine.

Especially you can't do much in the way of aerodynamics if you don't have the horsepower to push your car through the air. Jaguar's aerodynamicists have taken the stick for problems with the R3 that in fact had their origins in quite different areas of the car's design.

When the powers that be at Jaguar and Ford pushed hard for a more radical concept for their 2002 car, they were offered a new rear suspension that promised big aerodynamic benefits. Instead of rear wishbones it had separate links, with all but one link moved upward so there was no obstruction of the airflow over the top surface of the rear diffuser. Two of the links were placed in tandem, ahead of and behind the half-shafts, to create a venturi effect over the trailing edge of the diffuser. At high rear ride heights this radical new design increased rear downforce by nearly four percent.

Admittedly at risk, with the new layout, was the stiffness of the rear suspension. Computer simulations said this could be solved, and everyone in the management structure up to senior technical people at Ford in America signed off on the plan. In the event, the suspension wasn't stiff enough and required a major tear-up of the rear of the R3 at the beginning of the season. Instead of coming clean on what had happened, Jaguar decided to blame its problems on faulty front-wing design. It used this as a smokescreen to hide the real problems its technicians had experienced with the new design.

To the outside world this should have been obvious, bearing in mind that no aerodynamicists were fired by Jaguar Racing. Instead, technical chief Steve Nichols was made to fall on his sword. This was all too typical of the chopping and changing that has undermined the Jaguar effort. Said Teddy Mayer, hugely experienced McLaren and Penske team leader: "It blows my mind that you could build a bad car, fire the designer and hire somebody else to sort it out! Who knows nothing about it and has to start all over again! Absolute insanity!" But this is all too typical of Jaguar Racing.

One of the witnesses to the shambolic Jaguar performance at Silverstone was Richard Parry-Jones, a Briton who holds the title of global chief technical officer of the Ford Motor Company. A couple of months ago, the savvy Parry-Jones was briefed by a fellow Englishman, Sir Nick Scheele, to look into the problems of Jaguar Racing. "It is not doing for the image what we had hoped," said master of understatement Scheele, who during his rise to the post of chief operating officer of Ford had been the boss at Jaguar Cars. "You've got twelve weeks," he instructed Parry-Jones, "to tell me what we need to do to become podium material." His report is due on Scheele's desk less than a month from now.

I'm pretty sure that Parry-Jones's recommendations will have to start with Cosworth. Without world-class performance by Cosworth Racing, Jaguar Racing is dead in the water. I was a tad alarmed by Mark Webber's comment after test-driving the Jaguar R3: "There's a few things that might happen at Jaguar that might help Minardi one day." Whoa! Could that mean a third team for Cosworth, when it isn't even doing a good job for two? Ford has to stop thinking of Cosworth as a potential profit center - if it can get Arrows to pay its bills on time - and instead give it the personnel and resources it needs to build outstanding racing engines to power Jaguars.

Could Parry-Jones recommend a change at the top of Jaguar Racing? Rumours are rife that Lauda is in for the chop. Certainly the famously abrasive Austrian's rapport with the new boss of Ford's Premier Automotive Group, the youthful (41) Mark Fields, is likely to be less agreeable than it was with the departed Wolfgang Reitzle, a fellow take-no-prisoners kind of guy. But why dismiss Niki if you haven't another candidate ready to take over? And who - I ask you - would want the job? Come to think of it, there are worse jobs than ex-chief of Jaguar Racing. Just ask Bobby Rahal, who walked away from Ford with multi-millions. Maybe I'll give Parry-Jones a call!

As for the ultimate fate of Jaguar Racing, I give it a better than even chance of surviving Parry-Jones's inquest. Sir Nick has been quoted as saying that there's no question of Jaguar leaving Formula One. With a fickle outfit like Ford that's far from a guarantee, but it's a good sign. Another good sign was a recent remark by Scheele. "At Jaguar," he said, recalling his days there, "the ethos said we should ignore the car clubs because they are full of guys who wear anoraks" - shorthand in Britain for obsessive navel-gazing nerds. "But that's wrong," Scheele continued. "The ethos and love for cars comes from the guys who wear anoraks. It's what creates the brand."

Nothing excites the anoraks like Formula One. Jaguar may still be a long way from realizing the vision of now-departed Ford chief Jac Nasser, who dreamed of seeing waves of green-clad spectators rivalling the red of Ferrari. But it can be done. Teams can get better. Look at Renault from last year to this, and BAR at last reaping points at Silverstone. I still think Ford erred in giving Grand Prix racing to Jaguar (see here). But having done so, it now needs to make good on that commitment.