APRIL 23, 2002

The knives come out at Jordan

EDDIE JORDAN has announced major changes in the management of the team with four top men being shown the door and Jordan himself taking on a bigger role in the team. The team is also laying off more staff, bringing the workforce down to 200 people. The victims of the putsch include Joint Managing Director Trevor Foster, one of the more highly-rated managers in F1, the hugely-experienced head of engineering Tim Holloway, chief operating officer John Putt and - without even being mentioned in the press release - technical director Egbahl Hamidy. All the team said is that "the technical side of the team will be run by Director of Design and Development Henri Durand and Director of Race and Test Engineering Gary Anderson.

Eddie Jordan will oversee sporting and commercial issues.

"Jordan has always been at its best when lean and efficient," said Jordan. "Once you sense complacency creeping in, or costs becoming exorbitant, a prudent business needs to take action. We have an incredible group of people at Jordan who work tirelessly to achieve on track success. These changes will generate a more efficient structure at a time when our focus is on the performance and reliability of our cars."

The moves are fairly radical given Jordan's hands-off style of management in recent years. Eddie has spent a lot of his time trying to build up the Jordan brand rather than working closely with the team and the result of this has been that something like 30% of the team has changed in the course of the last year. A lot of this was down to the frustration that the team was not investing in new facilities - despite the fact that Jordan raised something like $60m at the end of 1998 when he sold 40% of the team to venture capitalists Warburg, Pincus & Co.