Jordan rocked by designer departure

Smith follows in the footsteps of Jordan's former technical director Mike Gascoyne, who made the same switch in October, and leaves the team with a big gap to fill in its line-up. Before he left, Smith completed work on Jordan's new EJ11 chassis, which is launched at Silverstone on January 16.

The news is bad timing for the Benson & Hedges-backed squad, as this year marks its first season with Honda as a works engine supplier and comes after a disastrous - by its standards - 2000 season.

Smith will now team up with Gascoyne at Benetton, as the Renault-owned team aims to revive its own flagging fortunes of late. The duo were involved in the design of the 1999 Jordan that won two races with Heinz-Harald Frentzen behind the wheel.

A replacement for Smith has yet to be named, although a spokesman said that promotion from within the Silverstone-based team's technical ranks was "highly possible". This would seem to a likely stopgap measure before Arrows Chief Designer Eghbal Hamidy joins Jordan, although he still has 18 months of his contract to run with his current team.

Jordan's technical staff had previously been boosted by the arrival of renowned engineer David Brown from the McLaren F3000 Junior Team at the end of last season, who has worked with numerous F1 world champions in his days with the Williams team. It has also recruited Gabriele Delli-Colli from Sauber, who will become senior race engineer for Jarno Trulli this year. He previously worked with Trulli at Minardi in 1997.