I found out that the Stewart team, where I was technical director, had been bought out by Ford and would be rebranded for 2000 before the Canadian Grand Prix in June 1999.
I was in California, because we used the Swift windtunnel, and I got a call from Jackie Stewart's secretary to set up a meeting in Detroit on the way to Montreal. I went there and there was a dinner suit, shirt, shoes all ready for me in my hotel room. The meeting was with Jackie, Helen [Jackie's wife], Edsel Ford II, and me - that's when I found out the company had been sold.
It seemed like a very good move, and it alleviated a lot of financial pressures. Although Stewart was getting some good results and did win a race late in 1999 at the Nurburgring with Johnny Herbert, we were not a big team and didn't have endless budgets. By becoming a works team, that was going to let it build.