Eddie Jordan quizzed in FIA press conference

EJ Interrogated
By Phil Giles
August 23 2003

Eddie Jordan took part in yesterdays FIA press conference, along with team bosses Toyota's Ove Andersson, Jaguar's Tony Purnell and BAR's Dave Richards. Eddie was quizzed about the 2004 driver line up and the possibility of a change of engine manufacturer.

Q: Gentlemen, you’re battling over fifth place in the championship, but at this time of the year, the focus of the teams tends to drift away from this year to next. The testing ban is about to come to an end, how much are you focused on next year rather than this year? What sort of bits and pieces are you still producing to test for this year? Are you expecting to test at Monza? And how important is fifth place in the championship?

Eddie JORDAN: Yeah, we’ll be in Monza. I think we’ve finished - in all but one year of the 13 or 14 years of Jordan Grand Prix – we’ve never been outside the top six except for one year. So it is vitally important. It is very tough; it’s us four, as you say. I never thought about that. But you have to fight right to the very end and we never give up fighting. Right to the last lap at Japan, we will be hoping and planning and developing and modifying the car in every way possible to make sure that we get the ultimate target which is the fifth place.

Q: Eddie, you’ve had a tough time of it recently, but you’re a racer, how can you turn it around, what needs to be turned around?

EJ: Turning around, in any context, whether it be business, human relations or otherwise, is a matter of putting forward a plan, thinking how it’s going to unfold, exercising and maximizing the best that you’re going to do and hopefully all of these things… The difference I find and have found between going extremely well one race and probably not so good the next is so tiny that you just need to be sure that you have attention to detail and maximize all of the opportunities and I’m probably completely focused now on the issue in hand, with 25 percent of this season yet to go. Probably in the past it’s been seen that when people write Jordan off they do so at their peril. The races we’ve won, we’ve always won them at the opportunities or times when we’ve least expected to win them, and I would hope that that can continue.


Q: One of the things that you have been good at is spotting new talent. Amongst the drivers here is Zsolt Baumgartner but what other new talent are you looking at and what can you say about Zsolt?

EJ: Well, I think this time last year was a big surprise. I think we all four of us are agreed about one thing, that there needs to be more of an input of excitement and local attention and detail to attract… maybe ten percent of the people who are coming here this weekend are Hungarians and in this case, that should be increased if at all possible. This time last year we gave Zsolt a couple of laps after the warm-up and before the race as a slight incentive for people, particularly Hungarian people, to see that there is an opportunity, that they have the potential of a world class driver in their midst and they should not ignore it. I’m really pleased that he was able to do such a fabulous job in Hockenheim and again here today, even more so. So there’s no doubt that he’s ready, in my opinion, for either a very top class team as a test driver or probably mid-running team as a race driver, and then grow. I think that’s what it needs, and more variations on that is what’s required. We need more excitement; we need more involvement, certainly at the races. On the TV, of course, it’s the most exciting season we’ve seen for a very long time, so that seems to be looking after itself but in terms of things and things to do, there’s too big gaps that nobody’s paying enough attention to and we would be silly to ignore opportunities like running Zsolt at races like this.


Q (To Tony Purnell) : Now, wearing your PPD hat, at the moment Cosworth are supplying three teams. Are you looking to expand on that? What’s the situation?

TP: For sure, Cosworth are always looking to expand their engine sales. They’re a commercial business, they want to supply as many people as they can. For next year, I would hope to be supplying three teams again. For sure, companies always like to expand their sales.

Q: What sort of specifications can you see being available?
TP: The devil’s in the detail and the timing. It would be very hard to supply four, five teams with the latest spec engines. But the way we’re planning it, for those customers we’ll have, I think we’ll be able to give them a very competitive package next year.

Q: To Eddie Jordan and Tony Purnell, I was in the Jordan motorhome talking to Eddie and I could not help but notice that four Cosworth engines blew up in practice which is a pretty dismal performance. Can I have your comments?

TP: I have received no technical reports on the engines so it is very difficult to speculate because these things are very complex. But without doubt we had a number of problems this morning and I would say it is not the performance that we or any engine supplier would be proud of. We want to perform with 100 percent reliability.

EJ: I thought you were paying attention to me instead of watching the TV watching these issues. I didn’t know there were four engine problems so I’m disappointed.

Q: The Canadian Grand Prix is one of the most popular races on the schedule and it is off the schedule for next year. What is your view on this whole thing?

EJ: It was the first place we ever scored a point, 1991 with De Cesaris and Gachot fourth and fifth. We’ve won the boat race there every year for four years across the canal(rowing basin), which is important to my team, and it is a great city, an emerging great technical center and if we are ever going to crack the North American continent then cancelling or not going to a place like Montreal doesn’t seem at all logical to me.

Q: Can I ask Eddie and Tony about the engine situation for next year? Firstly, is there a contract in place between the two of you and secondly what is the latest on affordable engines for independent teams?

TP: Certainly there is a contract between the two of us otherwise there wouldn’t be Cosworth engines in the back of the Jordan today and looking forward we are hoping for a longer relationship and I am optimistic that that is a strong possibility.

On the subject of fully affordable engines, a lot of people have worked very hard in the background ever since January to try and find solutions to making the supply to private teams more affordable. The culprit here is the fact that Formula One engines are very, very expensive. That is the real difficulty and even to supply them at an incremental cost is still very expensive and to date no-one has found an ideal solution to get the price right down but I know there is still work going on and I feel optimistic that eventually a good solution will be found to make life viable for teams without manufacturer support.

Q: Can I just ask for a clarification of the first part of that question. When the deal was signed between Ford and Jordan we understood the contract was initially for three years. Is that not the case?

TP: There is a contract in place, but all contracts have clauses which cover expected or unexpected events so that there are ways which it might be terminated and there are ways which it might continue. As I say, I am optimistic that it will continue and from the Ford point of view we would very much like to continue our relationship with Jordan.

Q: Eddie, Ford are saying, Tony is saying they want to continue the relationship with Jordan. Is that reciprocal?

EJ: I think what Tony has said is an accurate and fair assessment. I think the worst thing for Jordan was the lucky break it got in Brazil because no-one ever really, with a new engine partner, expects to have that kind of a result as a privateer so quickly. So, therefore, there was in place, which is absolutely correct, a three-year contract, and like all contracts there are provisions for various sets of circumstances and I think this is not the forum to go through and detail some of those clauses but there is a willingness, certainly on the Jordan side, to continue with Ford. It is a very early part of the relationship and something that I have always wanted. In fact, it was one year ago that I finally realised that we would have a contract with Ford and I fought viciously hard to achieve that and it is something that I won’t give up on easily. That’s that part, so there is clarity there: Jordan wishes to continue with Ford and with Cosworth.

The affordable engines? Yes, of course it is a concern because of different interpretations of what people understand as affordable. Some people talked about January, and we all know that there is an open letter about an offer or a position of offer of various different things about what the likely cost or the estimated cost that an engine should cost a private team. Sadly, that has not been able to be adhered to yet and possibly Tony has touched on that by the increasing cost of engines despite the one engine rule for next year, it still does not get away from the fact that, and I have no first-hand knowledge of this, but engines appear to be a very costly item in the overall structure of a Formula One budget. So I am not competent enough to be able to discuss what the 10 million Euro engine deal was, except that I believe that as privateer teams we were offered that and that went through the season. I would like, and I still believe, that whatever happens between Bernie, the banks, the GPWC, I believe that can be attained. I certainly hope so because I am relying on it in my budgetary format.

Q: Most of the engine manufacturers were saying 10 million Euros is not realistic, BMW say 20 million Euros…

EJ: I don’t think they would supply at 20 million Euros to be quite honest if you asked them. But that is not for me to answer because I don’t think 20 million is probably the right price either. I am not sure what the right price is, but it comes back to the age-old question: Do we want privateer teams in Formula One or do we not? Trying to estimate what some person has to give an engine for or not, I am not sure how it can be structured. But the key issue here is: do the major manufacturers want three privateers in Formula One? If they do, I think that all of us as a unit, as a sport, as a lobby group, ten of us, should get together to see how we can keep all ten of us in the sport at affordable engines which was what was discussed on April 28 or whatever it was at the FIA meeting.

Q: There have been reports that you have been talking to Mercedes. Is that true or is that just a negotiating ploy?

EJ: I think where a lot of that came from is that the original letter about the 10 million Euros came from Professor Hubbert and there may be some confusion and I just wanted to find clarification that this 10 million Euro engine was what we were all talking about.

Q: What is a realistic figure for you?

EJ: I think this is not really necessarily the forum. Everyone has different views. Bernie estimates it to be five, certain letters indicate ten and other people estimated a reason why an affordable engine on that particular meeting was put there obviously had a very significant meaning. It is a little bit unfair. I don’t want to have a row with Tony; Tony doesn’t want to have a row with me. He knows what the engine costs him and he needs to get as much as he can from our participation and to be honest what we got this year in engines…it has now come to my knowledge that it probably costs Ford in excess of that amount of money so there is probably some form of subsidy and it is a pity that these subsidies should come from just one or two manufacturers only and everybody else takes the benefit.

Q: Do you have a ballpark figure in mind?

EJ: My ballpark figure is that they should pay me 10 million to use their engine! I am in the real world, it is the rest of them that are not! (Laughter)

Q: But really, can you give us a figure?

EJ: Yeah, I have just told you: Ten. Ten less five is five, less five for good behaviour and you are zero. But we are not in the dreaming business - we are in reality. The facts are how much is the engine going to cost and I would like to be able to do a deal for 10 million Euros for the engine. And at the moment I am working towards that.

Q: Do you have a whole lot of choices?

EJ: Honestly, I couldn’t answer that because that would be giving any type of negotiating ploy that I might have away. Having said that, I don’t want to negotiate, I am happy to work with Cosworth but I need to get to the figures that I believed that I had already pre-arranged the budget in terms of a proposal for my sponsors and the team going forward. Any manufacturer or prudent team will have a projection as to what the likely costs are going forward. In those projections I have 10 million Euros.

Q: Eddie, when do we have the pleasure of hearing your driver line-up for next year?

EJ: I think Tony alluded to that earlier, that there seems to be a lot of very high quality drivers around at the moment and like everything, it always needs one major signing to kick-start the whole driver negotiations and to be fair, until speculation about Montoya does or doesn’t go, or stay or doesn’t stay, until that’s put in place, then I think most teams like us will naturally take a back seat and see what is available when the time occurs. He also touched on the opportunity that there’s 25 percent of the championship left, and this is a vitally important year for me because I’ve a bit of ground to catch up and the drivers are the drivers. I’m happy with the drivers. I could not lay any blame of what’s happening on their side or why we’ve just lost our way in the last months and it’s up to me to make sure I rescue that and support and commit and motivate my people in the maximum way to get something out of this season. So drivers, as we all here have said, are not quite as important this year as what you would normally see.