OCTOBER 18, 2001

Volkswagen sniffing at Jordan

VOLKSWAGEN is reportedly looking at Jordan Grand Prix as a possible route into Formula 1 in the future. The story was reported this week in the German business magazine Focus.

Jordan is currently working with Honda but as the Japanese car manufacturer has yet to decide on its strategy after the end of 2002 there could be potential for VW to buy into the team and become the engine supplier. Jordan has always said that shares are available for a major manufacturer to be involved in the team. The problem for Jordan is that it is still lagging a long way behind other teams in terms of equipment and work has still not started on a planned new factory, despite the fact that planning permission was granted as long ago as January.

Volkswagen has limited choice of ways to get into the sport as most of the top teams are already aligned to (or owned by) car manufacturers. McLaren, Ferrari, Renault Sport, Toyota and Jaguar are all manufacturer owned leaving Williams as the only major independent. The other teams available to a manufacturer are BAR, Jordan, Sauber, Prost, Minardi and Arrows. Of these BAR probably has the best facilities. Sauber, however, is a German-speaking operation.