Jaguar left top level motor racing back in 2004 when a cash-strapped Ford (which owned the firm at the time) sold its F1 team to Red Bull.

The latter went on to great, championship-winning success with Sebastian Vettel at the wheel.

It's been something of an open secret for a few weeks that JLR has been considering entering a team in the electric vehicle championship Formula E under the Jaguar brand.

Today, it has confirmed that. Renault, Audi and Peugeot already have a presence in the series.

The firm also committed to launch an electric vehicle (EV). While timescales remain unclear, it's at least good to see that JLR finally seems to be embracing EVs.

It's overdue. The firm's focus thus far has been on more efficient engines and hybrids and in serious lightweighting of its cars - using aluminium - to get CO2 emissions down.

But that's not enough. Tesla has stolen a chunk of the premium car market in Europe and the US and this has sent premium car makers into a spin.

Premium makers are now rushing to get cars to market that can compete with the likes of the Tesla Model S - witness the Porsche Mission E concept.

BMW is already there, of course, with the i3 and i8. Volvo, JLR's former sister firm at Ford's Premium Auto Group, has said that it will market an EV by 2019.

Add in tough new greenhouse gas emissions rules in the EU (JLR is thought to have one of the highest average carbon dioxide emissions of any leading car-maker) and JLR now seem to be taking electrification seriously.

Indeed, JLR is thought to be in discussion with Magna Steyr for the latter to assemble a new electric Jaguar at its Austrian plant - possibly from 2017.

So entering Formula E could offer JLR a chance to develop and test green technologies such as batteries and drive-trains for its road-car programme and show off its new 'e-credentials'.

A JLR statement read: "Jaguar Land Rover engineers will work directly with Jaguar's race team to push the boundaries of electrification technology."

Motorsport is a key strength for UK auto. A host of new technologies are developed in motorsport and then transferred into road use.

GKN for example is using flywheel technology developed by Williams to recover energy in vehicles such as buses.

Zytec, which came out of motorsport, developed the first electric motor for Daimler's electric Smart Car. The latest F1 cars, for example, are essential hybrids, with energy recovered through KERS systems.

Add in light-weighting and composites, and with the regulatory challenge to get emissions down, as well as telematics and the future of 'intelligent mobility', and you can see how useful motorsport can be for car firms in developing and testing new technologies.

It will likely need a partner for this and that's where Williams, of F1 fame, comes in.

The latter helped JLR develop the aborted CX-75 supercar, a version of which featured in the latest Bond film.

If this all signals a serious move by JLR into electric cars - at last - then that's good news for the firm and indeed for the fledging Formula E series which will benefit from having a legendary motorsport brand like Jaguar as part of the line-up.

It's not the first time in recent weeks that JLR has been linked with motorsport - the Post broke the story a few weeks ago that JLR was considering a bid to buy the Silverstone race track.

Electric Jaguar racing cars at Silverstone? Now that does sound interesting...

Professor David Bailey works at the Aston Business School