Jordan Sign Heidfeld for the 2004 Season

The Jordan team announced today they have signed German Nick Heidfeld as their driver for the 2004 season.

Heidfeld, who raced for Sauber in the past three seasons, after his debut season with Prost, had been testing for the Silverstone-based team in the last week and was expected to be signed alongside Jos Verstappen. However, the negotiations between Verstappen and Jordan have stalled and Jordan today announced Heidfeld only, leaving the second seat available for future announcement.

"I am carefully putting together a strong driver pairing to complement our 2004 package and sponsorship portfolio and signing Nick is the first part of that," Jordan explained. "I am optimistic that we have the tools to mount a reasonable contest against the midfield teams this year. Nick is a very quick driver with the talent and experience we need in order to grab every opportunity we can this season."

Heidfeld himself said: "I am very happy to sign a deal with Jordan Ford. It was a strange experience doing the tests, especially the last one in Barcelona, without being officially part of the team, because I really felt like I was already part of Jordan.

"It's nice to work with all the people here and I'm looking forward to this season very much. It will be exciting to take the new EJ14 car out next week, after spending today at the factory to do my seat fitting and seeing the 2004 car coming together for the first time."

"The last couple of weeks and months have been quite difficult for me so not only am I happy to be signing with Jordan, I'm also relieved.

"This season is going to be interesting and I'm particularly looking forward to the new races in Bahrain and Shanghai. I think these races are good for Formula One, after all it's a World Championship so we should go all over the world. I always like going to new circuits and enjoy visiting countries where I've never been before - that's always interesting."