Jordan claims Smith

Red Bull Racing appear to have a fight on their hands to obtain the services of much-heralded designer Mark Smith after his former team Jordan claimed they still have him under contract.

Smith was announced as Red Bull Racing's deputy technical director on February 25 just less than two months after he had been appointed as the technical director of Jordan Grand Prix.

But in a press conference ahead of Sunday's season-opening Australian Grand Prix, Jordan boss Colin Kolles insisted Smith is still a Jordan employee and said: "We still have a contract with Mark Smith and that is the fact.

"We will announce at the right time, please understand this, because the situation with Mark Smith is not clear at all, from our side at least. This is what I can tell you. There are some announcements made, maybe he signed some other contract.

"We will clarify that situation, maybe not in front of the journalists. He has a very clear contract (with Jordan). I'm not supervising somebody if he's signing two or three or four or five contracts. Everybody has to decide for himself if he works professionally or unprofessionally. So it's a question for me of dealing in a professional way."

Smith worked on Jordan's very first car in 1991 and spent ten years with the team before leaving with Mike Gascoyne to Renault then returning to Jordan at the end of last year.

He had been tipped to join up with Gascoyne again at Toyota and was thought to be using Jordan as a stepping stone to join his former boss because he was not allowed to move directly with him.

His move to Red Bull came as a surprise to many and looked to have been an impressive coup by the team's new technical boss Guenther Steiner until Red Bull boss Christian Horner heard of Jordan's objection.

"As far as I am concerned he will be joining the company imminently but Colin's comments today are obviously the first I have heard of anything to the contrary," said Horner.

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- The Autosport.com Team

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