James Barclay was appointed Team Director for Jaguar’s Formula E programme in November 2015, when the manufacturer first joined the all-electric series. In 2021, James was appointed Managing Director of JLR Motorsport and Team Principal of Jaguar TCS Racing.
James has been responsible for managing Jaguar’s return to motorsport in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship for the British brand. In 2024, James led Jaguar TCS Racing to win the ABB FIA Formula E Teams’ World Championship – the team’s first World Championship in the sport. It was also the year of milestones, as James and the team competed in their 100th Formula E race in Tokyo. Over the last nine years, James has overseen the growth of Jaguar TCS Racing, from the first Formula E win at the 2019 Rome E-Prix, to making history at the 2024 Monaco E-Prix with the first ever 1-2 finish in the principality. Across eight seasons, the team have secured 16 wins, 46 podiums, 11 pole positions, and a total of 1,411 championship points. James’ expanded leadership role of JLR Motorsport plays a key part in Reimagining Jaguar as a pure-electric luxury brand while helping to deliver JLR’s sustainable future and digital transformation. This includes Jaguar TCS Racing’s commitment to the GEN4 era of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, starting in 2026, which confirms the importance of Jaguar’s race to road technology transfer strategy.
In this interview I speak to James Barclay, Jaguar TCS Racing Team Principal & Managing Director of JLR Motorsport. We talk about the power of the Jaguar brand, how Jaguar decided to enter Formula E, and what it takes to build a championship winning motor racing team from scratch.
Q: What is the power of the Jaguar brand?
[James Barclay]: I think, like all great brands we know and love, it’s about the story—the achievements of the brand in the past and those iconic moments. Jaguar is rich in these moments of iconicity, such as the cars we produce, like the Jaguar E-Type, which is what comes to mind for everybody first. But there are so many: the D-Type, the C-Type, the XJS, the XJ220—these are beautiful cars which, as we say, were ‘copies of nothing’ ’ and represented the best of design, engineering, and capabilities.
It’s also the people who have driven the cars over the years—iconic figures who’ve had Jaguars and have been culturally incredibly relevant at times, especially when sports stars were behind the wheel. They’re part of the fabric of our society. Then there’s the racing success. Jaguar has the most success of any British brand in motor racing. In terms of Le Mans victories, when you think about other sports car races, and now in our current generation, Formula E—it’s all exciting. That’s formed part of Jaguar’s story: winning Le Mans in 1954 with disc brakes, the first car to do so; the aerodynamic rocket ships that the D-Types and C-Types were; the XJS winning the touring car championship; triumphing at Le Mans in the height of the Group C era against Porsche. These are iconic moments.
The latest chapter of racing is our Formula E programme, which is as successful as any in Jaguar’s history., I think all of these moments make Jaguar the brand that it is.
Q: What is business case for a brand like Jaguar to engage the resource and effort to compete in Formula E?
[James Barclay]: As you say, it’s an undertaking. If you do it, you should do it properly—that’s always been our philosophy in terms of the team approach. We compete not to just make up the numbers, but to do it right, with a full programme to achieve success on the track and meet all our other measures of success, too. Rewinding the clock to when I joined the business, my brief was to bring the brand back to racing—but not for just any reason. It had to be for the right reason. Those words are important because it had to be meaningful.
We did a lot of analysis across different categories of motorsport. Our previous programme was in Formula 1, and we’d been out of the sport for 12 years by that point. We said, “Okay, if we come back, it’s going to be for the right reason—what’s out there in the landscape of motorsport?” We looked at everything. Then there was this startup championship, Formula E—the first all-electric racing series. We started to see the initial signs of a transition toward an electrified car industry. At that point, we said, “Let’s stay true to Jaguar’s philosophy: let’s be a copy of nothing, let’s lead and not follow, let’s be the first.” At the time, we were the first brand to fully commit to Formula E. Other brands, like Renault and Audi, were involved, but at arm’s length. We said, “Let’s get fully involved with our own team.” The factory team would bring Jaguar back to motorsport.
It surprised a lot of people that we chose Formula E, but for us, it was actually quite straightforward when we looked at the decision factors. First, we had to tell the world we were going to start making electric cars. The Jaguar I-PACE was our first-ever EV, and launching an EV from a standstill without building awareness—that’s a challenge. The Formula E programme was a great way to announce that our first EV was coming and that we knew a bit about this technology. Then the I-PACE went on to become World Car of the Year, earning many accolades. The programme was well-timed ahead of the I-PACE launch, but we also knew it would grow stronger in the future, with our fleet—the cars we make, engineer, and sell—increasingly shifting towards electrification. Did we have our reimagine strategy fully in mind at that point? No. But did we see the seeds of it? Absolutely.
Firstly, there was a clear line to the future trajectory of the company. Secondly, you can tell a story around “Jaguar Electrifies”—that’s the phrase we used at the time. It’s about brand value, ROI, and awareness. But it wasn’t just that. It was also a real-world testbed for electric vehicle technology. True to Jaguar’s philosophy, when we go motor racing, we should learn from it to improve our future road cars. We felt Formula E had the potential to become a world championship, and by racing against world-class competitors, we’d fast-track our understanding of EV powertrain technology. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. It’s been a high-speed laboratory for the most advanced electric cars in the world, which Formula E cars are.
So, it’s about brand awareness, the transition to electrification, and a real-world testbed for EV tech. We also loved that it was, we believe, the most accessible form of motorsport—big races in city centres, racing through the heart of cities for fans who live there and probably wouldn’t normally get to traditional tracks two or three hours away from major metros. That really appealed to us. Lastly, it was about the shift towards clean mobility. We wanted to be part of that change—positive change—and contribute to the transition toward zero-emission mobility. Our goal is to be net carbon zero by 2035.
Q: Where do you begin when trying to create a Formula E race team?
[James Barclay]: We started with an approval and a business case—a blank sheet of paper. There was no one with a motorsports job title in the company, so we had to build all the building blocks from scratch. How do you go about doing that? First, you look at your foundation. As a racing team, you need really great technical capability. We chose to work with a company called Williams Advanced Engineering—now Fortescue Zero—who were already close to us on projects like the C-X75 hybrid supercar. We said, “These are a great technical partner who understands the formula; let’s make them part of the formation of this team.” Since day one, we’ve had a technical partnership to support us in that space. That was the first step—bringing in a strong technical partner to collaborate with.
Then it was about bringing in all the right people: design teams, race engineering teams, team operations, commercial staff—building all the fundamental parts of a successful sports team. On one side, you’ve got the performance, design, and strategy elements; on the other, a really strong commercial side—great communications teams, partnerships, and sponsorships teams. We’re a rights holder at the end of the day, and we wanted to establish ourselves quickly as a valuable rights holder that could deliver for partners. So, we looked at all areas of the business, defining their roles in creating a successful organisation. We started by selling a clear vision of what we wanted to become: a racing team that would be successful on track but also realistic in our assessment of that performance. We weren’t going to say, “We’re going to come out and be number one straight away.”
It’s the same for startups—you don’t think you’ll go out and beat the behemoths and giants immediately. It’s about setting realistic targets you can achieve, balancing realism with stretch goals that are ambitious enough to push you, but still attainable with the right people, resources, and investment. You create a real North Star—a clear vision and roadmap—whether it’s technical or commercial. You ramp things up, stay willing to learn, be prepared to make mistakes, and gear up your stakeholders for the journey, building that support upfront. Overpromising and underdelivering is a real negative, so we did the opposite—being clear on our trajectory and the milestones we’d hit. That was key for us early on.
Then we looked at what fundamentally makes a successful sports organisation—what elements we needed. We started with a mix of experienced staff and people just beginning their careers in this area with us. We built this group together through that shared experience and learning. I strongly believed in keeping the knowledge in-house with the team so we could build that strength over time—and that’s where we’ve got to.
Q: How do you manage risk when leading a motorsport team?
[James Barclay]: The reality is, we’re very fortunate. We live in a generation where our sport is safer than ever before. The sport has a history, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, that isn’t great in terms of safety, but it has evolved and moved forward so much. There’s always a risk profile, though. Doing what we do, with a team, risk is something we manage very carefully—safety is paramount for us. We’re lucky to have the FIA, a governing body that’s really taken control of that and made all our sports safer. It’s a process that never sleeps, never stops, and we’re always looking for improvements in safety. Our goal is to keep driving that forward, first and foremost. That risk isn’t just mitigated by us—it’s handled by the FIA and everyone involved, with world-class people supporting it.
At the same time, our sport retains a gladiatorial side, but not at any cost—and that’s important. Safety is critical, yet there’s still that gladiatorial element: human and machine performing at the absolute limit, at high speed, on incredibly challenging surfaces, with highly professional people behind the wheel—great athletes and great teams running them. From our perspective, it’s a really attractive combination. With safety as a top priority, it always remains that way, but the ingredients of our sport—and the admiration fans have when they watch these athletes at the highest level doing incredible things in a car—keep it special. Even being as involved as we are, you can get so exposed to that talent that you almost take it for granted. But I guarantee you, when we see our race drivers do something incredibly special, despite having been in racing virtually my whole life, I still regularly step back and think, “Wow, that’s not something I could do.” That feeling doesn’t wear off.
What we do have is a sport that’s a perfect opportunity to develop our future road cars. Why? Because to win and compete with world-class brands like Porsche, Nissan, McLaren—and in the past, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, all these incredible names—you have to innovate in ways you wouldn’t normally. Sport is amazing like that. I always use this analogy: imagine you’re an Olympic sprinter in the final of the Olympic Games. You’ve trained for almost four years to get there. You look over your shoulder, and all these other athletes are within centimetres of you as you approach the finish line. At that point, the only difference between winning and losing is the preparation you’ve put in—the years of effort, the hard work. That’s in a human-body sport driven by what you can physically do. Now put us in a sport where technology evolves, and it’s the same. Racing improves the breed, quite frankly. We have to innovate to beat our competition, find the areas where we can edge them out. It’s like that sprint—you have to be in a position to win, and what makes the difference between winning and losing? Your technology, your teamwork, your culture, your people—all that becomes a fundamental output.
So, what does that teach us? It teaches us to develop and innovate technologies that go into our future road cars, making them better for our customers to drive. We learn how a high-performing team operates, and the rest of the business can take lessons from that. These are great testbeds and proof points for what ultimately ends up as better products for our customers.
Q: How do you deal with the binary nature of success in a motor racing team from a leadership perspective?
[James Barclay]: The great thing about our sport is that you know immediately if you’re successful based on the race results. There’s no wondering whether it was a successful activity for the business—it’s pretty clear. Our goal is to win races; if we’re not winning, we aren’t hitting the ultimate target. That comes with pressure, like in any sport, but it’s part of the makeup of it, and you learn to live with it. As you say, what differentiates good teams is how they handle that. Take sport as an example: Tiger Woods won 23% of his professional PGA Tour events, and Roger Federer won 54% of the points he played in tennis. Those are amazing stats, but they’re not 100%, not even 80%. That means the best of their generation—arguably the best ever—had to handle plenty of losses. So, the rest of the time, you’re in a period of learning, figuring out why you didn’t succeed and what you could do better. That’s the beauty of sport: you either use that positively or take it negatively. The only option is to take it positively—look at the losses, see where you can improve your game, and in our case, our racing. Can we make the car better? Can we improve team operations? Every loss is an opportunity to learn. Sometimes you learn less when you win than when you lose. It’s about making it a process that motivates rather than demotivates you.
Creating stability in a team is key. A lot of sports teams hire and fire constantly—I sometimes wonder about professional football managers who cycle in and out annually and don’t get the chance to build a foundation or culture. Stability matters—having an environment where you can learn from the days you’re not successful, fostering a culture that’s not about blame, but about how we can get better. That’s really important, and it’s something I’m learning, something we continue to learn since we’ve been involved. We’ve just had two challenging races in a row. We’re reigning world champions, we’ve won one race this year, but the last two weekends have been tough. That’s a motivation to get better, though—it’s all in how you approach it. The best have done exactly that.
There’s a lot of motivation in sport when you look at it realistically. That opportunity to learn is hugely motivating. Culture is critical—if you’re going to have an environment where everyone has faith in each other to do the right thing, you need a group of people who want the same goal. It’s not for everybody. It’s a high-pressure environment where people are pushed to their limits, work incredibly hard, and commit their lives—it’s not just a job, it’s a way of life. It takes a certain kind of person, but it’s about creating a culture where those people can flourish. It’s been an incredible journey since I started the team, going through this experience. What you absolutely learn is that culture is the foundation. You can have the best resources and equipment, but it starts with the people and the culture. If you don’t have the right people in the right roles with the right culture, the rest—such as money or great facilities—doesn’t matter. So many sports demonstrate that it’s not about that; it’s about the people and the culture. Then you give them the right funding and facilities to maximise their know-how and skillset. But it begins with people and culture.
Q: How has Formula E impacted the wider Jaguar business?
[James Barclay]: I can’t think of anything better than sport to inspire change. I’ve talked about this a lot, but I grew up in South Africa and was there in 1995 when Nelson Mandela lifted the Webb Ellis Rugby World Cup trophy and united a nation. Sport has that incredible power. One thing we really value about this team is the responsibility we have to our 44,000 employees at JLR. We’re the flagbearers for this incredible, iconic Jaguar brand, and the generation tasked with writing the next chapter of its on-track success. That’s a huge responsibility, but it’s also a massive opportunity and a tremendous honour. We work pretty hard, but we have an incredible job—something we don’t take for granted.
As you say, we started this journey back in 2016 when we didn’t even have an electric car in our company. Honestly, the team has improved year on year, culminating in winning our first world championship last year. Our employees have seen that we’re striving to become the best electric racing team in the world. Now, as Jaguar transitions to an all-electric modern luxury car company, this is our Formula 1. Last year, after winning the world championship, we celebrated with all our colleagues, bringing the trophies home with our race drivers. That moment signified that, as a company, we produce the best—we’re the reigning world champions at the pinnacle of electric racing. It shows we’re number one as an electric racing car company, which is a motivating factor for those developing our future generations of EV cars. It demonstrates what they’re capable of. In a year when we announce the new Jaguar, we’ll be reigning world champions.
That, as you say, brings a North Star. It brings confidence and a humbleness, because it doesn’t come for free—it takes huge effort, sacrifice, and delivers huge rewards. It’s motivating for everyone involved, pushing them to do the same and bring our future cars to reality. They’re putting in a massive amount of time and effort, and it shows it’s all worth it. As you noted, this has been one of our most important reasons for racing: motivating and showcasing to our staff what we’re capable of as a company.
Q: What excites you about motorsport
[James Barclay]: I think at its heart, motor racing is ultimately a team sport—gladiatorial in nature, but also deeply tied to technology. All those elements resonate with people. You have incredible athletes, backed by amazing teams, racing these beautiful, highly powerful cars in iconic locations. It’s a potent mix of technology, emotion, and the sacrifice and commitment required to succeed at the top level. It’s about excellence. Those things are really powerful. When your racing team succeeds, you see that excellence in action—the best athletes, the best teams, the best technology, all coming together in these iconic settings.
It’s also about history. This sport has an amazing legacy, paving the way for generations, always evolving, always challenging. At its core, it blends all these aspects, and that’s what makes it incredibly appealing.