Red Bull and Ford have forged a partnership that has the potential to conquer Formula 1. From 2026 onwards, and with the advent of the newest engine regulations, the two entities will jointly attempt to take over the sport. However, this isn’t the first time the two have crossed paths with each other in the arena of F1 racing. Back in the early 2000s, while Jaguar, under the stewardship of Ford was failing in F1, the Energy Drinks goliath was waiting in the wings.

In the recently released book “Surviving to Drive” Haas boss, Guenther Steiner gave an unparalleled insight into the troubles that were brewing within Jaguar’s F1 mission. The Italian engineer was a core part of the team’s latter years in the sport, however, the picture wasn’t pretty at all.

Ford’s horrid F1 history

Ford, on paper, is one of the most successful engine suppliers in the sport. However, they also hold the unfortunate title of handling one of F1’s greatest failures; the Jaguar team. With Ford’s impending F1 reunion, Steiner’s words may come as a nasty recall for Red Bull fans.

In his book, Steiner wrote, “The car [2002’s Jaguar R3] was the biggest piece of sh*t that was ever built. It was developed before Niki [Lauda] and I came along. The only thing that spoke for the car – and I mean really the only thing – was that it had almost no downforce, so it was fine on high-speed circuits like Monza. If it didn’t fail.”

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“In the other 16 races of the season [2002], Eddie finished six times and retired ten times! That was always the problem with Jaguar, apart from all that other sh*t. In five seasons they had 69 retirements.”

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Red Bull picked up the baton from Ford in 2005, rebranding the Jaguar team as their own. But with them joining hands this time, Red Bull should be wary of the ‘Ford way’.

Red Bull should be wary of Ford’s corporate politics

At the end of the day, Formula 1 is purely about racing. What wins in this sport is a fast car. However, when corporate politics enter the game, it threatens to spoil the broth. And this is exactly what happened with Ford’s doomed Jaguar venture.

Jaguar’s then technical director Gary Anderson revealed to Motorsport Magazine, “In charge was a Ford company man from Detroit called Neil Ressler, who had no understanding of how racing worked. He’d call a meeting of 30 team people and say, ‘If you guys won’t do this the Ford way, we’ll get some guys who will.”

“I stood it as long as I could, fighting a system that was never going to work. It was a great shame, because the car was potentially very good. In the little Stewart team we were all racers; Ford threw heaps of people at it, but none of them were racers. They didn’t realize that, rather than trying to manage, they should let the people with experience do their jobs.”

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Will the same corporate virus seep into the Red Bull-Ford relationship as well?