To the surprise of the Formula One community, Ford announced this week that Niki Lauda would be leaving the helm of the Jaguar team as they, as Ford said, head for a "new technical philosophy". But what's there behind Ford's decision? Atlas F1's Karl Ludvigsen gives his take on the matter

We have to assume that Ford has a Master Plan here and has chosen to expose only a small portion of it to us. Otherwise combinations of words like "baby/bathwater" and "dog's/breakfast" come all too easily to mind. Why organize a major news conference to announce that someone is stepping down from two jobs when you're able to name only one replacement? It's not the sort of thing that you would like to be doing as a senior representative of a major international automobile company.

Granted, Ford had two of its smoothest operators at the helm of its press gathering. Richard Parry-Jones lacked nothing in sincerity and determination. I particularly liked his response to one questioner to the effect that "you don't know how to win the World Championship until you start getting on the podium." That's true, but in its modesty and understatement it isn't the kind of expression you hear from Renault's Patrick Faure, for instance. And it's always reassuring to be able to wheel out Sir Jackie, who has never been known to put a foot wrong in public. No one is better qualified to try to explain why Ford hasn't plunked for a "six-million-dollar superstar guru" to head up its Premier Performance Group and, by implication, Jaguar Racing.

The announcements serve only to underline what a terrible muddle Ford has made of its Grand Prix commitments. Among the reasons for Jaguar Racing's failure none is more profound, said Stewart, than "far, far too many management changes." And here, Parry-Jones admitted, they've gone and done it again. But he felt a need to put a new team in place that can work toward a long-range future founded on technological excellence. And to head that he's chosen Tony Purnell, founder and CEO of the Pi Group.

Sir Jackie may consider Purnell a "back-room man" in the world of Formula One, but he's been a "front-room man" in the creation of Pi. A graduate of MIT as a Kennedy Scholar, Purnell founded Pi Research at the end of the 1980s and immediately put it in the forefront of the deployment of electronics in racing. In the 1990s his Pi Group embraced both Pi Racing and Pi Technology, the latter dedicated to road-car applications of his team's ideas. When at the end of 1999 Ford announced that it would acquire the Pi Group, this was a strong endorsement of its skills and of the leadership of Tony Purnell.

Is Ford making a mistake in taking Purnell away from direct management of his company? It seems not. Purnell has built up a strong team of capable managers and engineers at Pi, proactive and entrepreneurial people who can carry on in spite of his elevation to head the Premier Performance Group (PPG), which includes Jaguar Racing and Cosworth Racing as well as Pi. In his work at Pi, Purnell has shown that he knows how to obtain and motivate good people. This, obviously, is the talent that Parry-Jones wants to deploy at the top of Ford's PPG. If technology is the measure, Purnell seems a good choice.

Purnell's move could easily have been the subject of a press release. In holding a news conference to announce his appointment, my guess is that Ford wanted to pre-empt anything that Niki Lauda might say. Justly famous for his forthrightness, Lauda was not likely to go quietly, Ford knew. It wanted to be sure to have its position out in the open before "The Rat" had his say.

Unwinding the bizarre arrangements put in place by and for Wolfgang Reitzle was never going to be easy. It's happening in America, where Lincoln and Mercury have been taken away from the Premier Group - where they never should have been in the first place - and are returning their staffs to Dearborn from California. New Premier Group head Mark Fields is folding his offices into Ford's London Ingeni Design Center. And now Lauda, who came into Premier as the head of PPG and later led Jaguar Racing as well, is being offered the same consultancy role he once had at Ferrari. Ford must be hoping like mad that he turns it down.

What I miss here is any hint of the bigger picture. Of the Master Plan. Where, in all this, is Jaguar? Isn't this supposed to be "Jaguar Racing"? Was there a high-level Jaguar person at the news conference? I don't think so. In an ideal world my conception is that Jaguar Racing should be closer to Jaguar Cars, much as things are done at Ferrari. As it's obvious, that's far from the case at present. Jaguar Racing is out there struggling away on its own while Jaguar Cars tries to deal with its own problems, such as a half-billion-dollar loss in its latest business year. It's not easy to see how they could or should get together.

Yet if Ford is serious about "Jaguar Racing" I think that's what they should do. The Pi Group should be sold, while Jaguar Racing and Cosworth Racing should be integrated under one management and made part of the Jaguar Cars business unit. A lot of eyewash was spilled at the news conference about Cosworth's problems under Niki's management in its separate dealings with Jaguar and with its other customers. This is something that Ferrari seems to manage very well, thank you, as did Renault also in its earlier V-10 era. There's no reason why Jaguar couldn't manage it just as effectively.

A closer link to Jaguar could also help solve this "team principal" business. I'm no wiser than you as to just what "team principal" is all about. Who, for example, is Ferrari's team principal? Is it Todt or di Montezemolo? Does Williams have two team principals? There's probably something about it in the Concorde Agreement, but otherwise it seems to be a holdover from the old days when a guy started a racing team and was ever afterward recognized as its leader. I'd like to see a Jaguar Racing team principal who has something to do with Jaguar - if we must have one. I nominate former Jaguar director of product engineering Jim Randle.

As you know, I was never in favor of the shift of Stewart Racing from Ford to Jaguar in the first place. Is it possible that the omission of Jaguar from any important role at the news conference means that Ford wants to keep its options open in this important respect? Has Ford finally tumbled to the fact - so obvious to everyone else - that the marriage of Jaguar and Formula One is an uncomfortable union at best? That with such major marketplace rivals as Toyota, Honda and Renault deeply committed to Grand Prix racing, the Ford blue oval should be out there on the track as well? Perhaps it's too much to hope for - but I'll be watching to see whether the cars from Milton Keynes take to the tracks in 2003 as Fords, not Jaguars.