Analysis: Jordan Won't Go Down without a Fight

Last year Jordan won the Brazilian Grand Prix against the odds, now they are fighting for survival.

There is a real danger, even if insiders are confident it will not come to that, that Sunday's season-ender at Interlagos could be the end of the road for one of Formula One's more colourful teams.

Ford's decision to pull the plug on its Formula One involvement, selling the Jaguar team and engine manufacturer Cosworth, was a knife through the heart for the popular team founded by Irish entrepreneur Eddie Jordan: he had banked on a continuing supply of Ford engines for 2005 and suddenly it had dried up.

However much goodwill and fighting spirit they may possess - and Jordan have been to the brink of financial collapse and back before now - they can go nowhere without an engine. As Ian Phillips, the team's director of business affairs and effectively Eddie Jordan's right hand man, said in Japan this month: "Life isn't very comfortable at the moment."

But he did his best at Interlagos to sound optimistic they would pull through. "Obviously right now we don't have an engine to go racing next year but it is our intention to be on the grid in Melbourne (for the first grand prix of 2005)," he told Reuters.

"There's lots of things going on behind the scenes, things have got to come together pretty quickly but we think there's a way, and we're going to explore every avenue. We're not just going to walk away from this at all. Racing is what we do, we don't do anything else."

Winning Past

A few years ago, racing was something Jordan did very well indeed for a small, independent team operating on a fraction of the budgets of their carmaker-backed rivals.

They gave future Champion Michael Schumacher his debut in 1991, before Benetton snapped him up, as well as younger brother Ralf in 1997. Eddie Irvine and Rubens Barrichello also started out there.

In 1999, Jordan finished third in the Constructors' Championship behind Ferrari and McLaren. The previous year Damon Hill led Ralf Schumacher in a one-two at Spa in Belgium. The team was trendy, young and successful.

Last year, when the Brazilian race was held in torrential rain in April, Giancarlo Fisichella landed his first victory when the event was stopped early. But the Italian had to wait a week before he was proclaimed winner due to a timing error that initially credited McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen.

This season they have scored only five points, helped by Williams' disqualification in Canada. Since June, Jordan have not even broken into the top 10 in a race classification.

They now have until mid-November, the deadline for official entries to the 2005 Championship, to find an engine.

Cosworth's fate is still up in the air but Toyota could be an option, depending on still-to-be confirmed engine regulations for next season. Although team boss Tsutomo Tomita said in Japan this month that it was too late to supply a second team, Toyota team sources said at Interlagos the possibility remained open.

"We have appealed to the Formula One community at large," said Phillips. "Ford gave us seven minutes' notice that they were pulling out but we had a perfectly good plan to go racing next year.

"We haven't been able to resolve that situation yet but we believe that Jordan has a role to play and Eddie personally is prepared to be very flexible in achieving the team being on the grid next year.

"Everybody is aware of our position and one or two companies have indicated that they may be in a position to help."

Extreme Measures

Jordan said this month that he would be happy to go into partnership with someone else if it could secure his team's survival. "The situation for the small teams is pretty grim," he said however. "The presence of too many manufacturers have sounded the death knell for the smaller independent teams."

In extremis it has been suggested that Jordan could appeal to other teams and the governing body to allow them to take a year's absence to secure an engine deal for 2006.

"It's not allowed but obviously if we are in a position to go racing with a race team but there is no engine available to us, then what else can you do? ... except wait until there is one available," said Phillips.

"But that's not an option. The option of not racing next year is not one that at the moment we want to face up to. We think that there are ways to keep us racing."