Jordan Hand Launch Over to Deustche Post

The Jordan team announced on Wednesday that their commercial launch will take place in Brussels on February 22, and revealed that backers Deutsche Post will organise the event.

The launch will take place at Brussels' Zaventem airport just one week before the new car takes to the track in Melbourne in practice for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

The team had been forced to put off the launch as they waited for final decisions on sponsorship agreements, which is thought to include the elevation of Deutsche Post to title sponsors as a replacement for Benson and Hedges.

"Deutsche Post are organising the launch," revealed a team spokesperson, who refused to comment on the company's sponsorship status. "In the past it has always been in the UK but they are launching the car in the way they want to do it.

"If we had been able to do it sooner we would have but we had not finalised all the sponsorship until now."

The team strongly denied rumours of budget troubles, despite Benson and Hedges' decision to reduce their financial input. And the spokesperson revealed that Jordan will announce "several" new sponsors at the Brussels launch.

"There will be new sponsors and they will be new names to Formula One," the spokesperson said. "It's not all doom and gloom in Grand Prix racing. The budgets at the team are healthy. There was no delay in the roll-out of the car and the testing has been absolutely fine."

The launch location will allow the team to prepare their equipment for transportation to Melbourne, as it is one of only two places in Europe with X-ray machines large enough to scan the cars.