JANUARY 8, 2003

Massa and Jordan

Felipe Massa has emerged as the man most likely to take over from Takuma Sato at Jordan. With Jos Verstappen wisely rumored to be on his way to Minardi and Christjian Albers looking at a continued career with Mercedes-Benz in the DTM, Massa is the obvious choice for Eddie Jordan. The 21-year-old from Sao Paulo arrived in Formula 1 after only four seasons of racing and while he was impressively quick on many occasions he was very inconsistent and made a lot of mistakes. It was still a surprise however when Sauber announced that it was dropping him at the end of the year as it was felt that as he matures Massa could develop into a top F1 talent. There have long been rumours of some kind of a deal between Massa and Ferrari but these are consistently denied by both sides although there may be an arrangement between the two parties via a third party.

Jordan needs money and as we understand it, Massa has secured backing from Ford of Brazil and from the national oil company Petrobras. This believed to amount to around $4.5m and although Jordan is asking for $7.5m it is very clear that there are no drivers available with that kind of money and that Massa is probably the best bet overall.