Eddie Jordan Q&A

"I'd have broken their legs before they got away!"



"One thing about the car is it must be very strong to withstand that. It was a huge accident. A side impact like that is the worse kind of accident you can have."



"No, we're still off the pace, but two points makes a big difference, and it takes a lot of pressure off. The car has made improvements. The little aerodynamic things we did make the car easier to race, and we now need to qualify better."



"Monaco is an important race. We'll have to see what happens. It can be a good race or a bad race, but there's always something unusual. I hope we can give Giancarlo a better car."



"It was something that I believe had to be done. Jordan needed to restructure, or if you like go back to a proven formula that gave us results and race wins. That was only two years ago. Since then when you look at the data everything points to the fact that we should get meaner and leader again. It was let's get back to the way we were - hands-on with a strong element of passion and Jordan spirit. There was no alternative but to go back to where we wanted to be, and where we would get the best results."



"We can all talk ourselves in and out of recessions. I don't necessarily believe that there's a recession there, but what I do believe is that there is a downturn globally in advertising spend, and in terms of the popularity of sport in general, and the amount of available cash inside sport. I just want to be prudent in the way I run business, I want to go back to the way I was, which was meaner and leaner and tighter, when we had a better result strike rate. By doing that it will also mean that we are more prudent in terms of the fiscal structure of our business. Those two seem to marry quite well together. Certainly now seems to be the time to do it, not when it becomes a real problem, if it does become a problem."



"It's an absolute necessity. F1 is not immune to the downturn in the market. No other sport is immune to it. There are of course some teams who don't feel or see any change, and they don't need to make any changes from where they currently are. At Jordan, which is purely an entrepreneurial team, we can only spend the money we get in, and we can only spend it once, so we've got to make sure we get the bets return for that spend. It can be quite different in other structures, and good luck to the teams that have manufacturers to back them."



"Obviously the car might not be quite as good as it should be. It's arguable that we need more power also, that's what the drivers would say, but we need more performance from the car. It's not a one sided thing. It's unfair to say it's just Jordan, and it's unfair to say it's just Honda. It's a combination of the two. Honda is working flat out to make it better, and so are we. I really believe that we can make a bit of a change here. I know that Honda is determined to get us a new engine by Canada, and we have a number of ongoing things. We have a new chief designer and head of aero in Henri Durand, and he has such a wealth of experience I'm quite certain that he will give us that little extra that's needed. The gap in the middle from about sixth place to 12th or 14th is a matter of fractions of a second. If we can make an improvement it will be really noticeable in grid positions."



"Of course they are vitally important. At the moment they are our partner. We've had discussions with them about how they're going to make it better, and they've told us how we will make it better for them. It's not going to be easy. Because of the major manufacturers that have come into the sport it's a very, very tough business right now."



"He is just fantastic. I think everybody has realised how good he is. When you're assessing what's good and what's bad, he's always top of the pile of what's good."



"He's having a little blip, just not quite getting the qualifying as well as he should do. He is enormously talented and he's going to be very quick. But this is a big, big psychological warfare, F1. He's in a situation where he started off well, but he had a couple of little problems in Malaysia with his team-mate, which are all history now. He just needs a good race to make sure that he's able to get back on side."