MOTORSPORT
RACING LINES
Damien Smith
Evans masterfully topped all-Jaguar podium in Brazil
Button was made to sweat on his Nascar debut
GETTY IMAGES
Jaguar has a rocky record in motorsport, beyond its storied sports car legacy, built at Le Mans in the 1950s and then enhanced so sensationally in Group C during the 1980s. Elsewhere, it has been patchy – at best. Let’s not linger on the Formula 1 humiliation at the start of this millennium, an ill-starred campaign mangled by spectacular mismanagement from its then parent company, Ford. No wonder the British brand stayed away from the grids for so long.
Yet for the past seven years, Jaguar has been back on track – although you can be forgiven if you haven’t noticed. Jaguar Land Rover’s compulsion to electrify the leaping cat led it to Formula E, a curate’s egg of a series that has attracted major manufacturer investment but only a sliver of the interest that F1 generates.