Eddie Jordan sells out

No suprise really, his team has been steadily going backwards on the grid. It was just a matter of time. Maybe his heart just ain't in it anymore trying to go against the top teams and coming up way short. I hope he stays in F1 in some visible capacity.

Kenny K.

 

Eddie gave it a great run as an independant - good on him. And always had the hottest babes.

 

I talked to a guy who put a couple of cranes in his facility. He said Eddie was very hands-on and a super nice, down to earth guy. He spent quite a lot of time in the facility for the project and showed me pics of him sitting in the car and also getting a ride in the 2-seater. He said it was all Eddie's doing. Pretty cool story. Bummer news.
Jim

 

Actually I'm glad for Eddie he found somebody who would buy the team and carry on. I was afraid he would eventually pull out of F1 a bankrupted man. Good for him and we'll get to see the team intact and not withdrawn from F1, albeit under a new name eventually.

 

Ditto. Eddie has always been unique in his approach and reluctance to sell out. I think this is akin to the ultimate sacrifice, parental almost. He finally accepted that for his child to live he had to let it go, otherwise he'd merely watch it die a slow death.

 

It was a matter of time. However, I question the decision of the Midland F1 group to buy Jordan Racing. Unless they got an extremely good deal, it would have made more sense to start from scratch and build a new team. In this case Midland is going to play the role of infusing cash into a poor team and hope to turn it around. It takes a long time to turn around a team. I do understand that Midland will gain from the experience and knowledge of the Jordan organization. But in my opinion it would have been easier to start from zero and move forwards. By purchasing Jordan Racing you start from negative.

Best of luck to Midland F1 and welcome to the very top of motorsport.

 

I wonder what happens now with the Toyota engine contract, does it still hold or does this mean the Midland F1 team is going to come up with a different engine supplier.

 

Toyota started from scratch, and a pretty impressive scratch at that. They finished 4 points ahead of Jordan last year for a rather unimpressive 8th in CC standings. In fact, Toyota came in dead last their first year. Discounting Arrows, who did not last the entire season, but even then, Toyota only managed to TIE them.

Ford bought Stewart's team. While their standings were never that hot, they certainly were a little more hot than Toyota's efforts.

It has only been the last few years that Jordan hasn't been doing that well, so I think that there's a pretty good foundation on which to build a team. And certainly not a "negative" starting position.

 

I'm not totally sure on this, but I believe this has also a lot to do with the rights to be part of F1: I think it is easier (at least used to) to buy up a team to get into F1 than go through the regular process. Although OTOH F1 is currently two teams short anyway (Prost and Arrows), so I doubt Bernie et al. would have given Midland a hard time about joining the club.

Speaking of Prost: I read a recent interview with him and he still feels very bad about the whole Prost F1 team deal and wish he hadn't done it. Prost and Arrows showed us and Eddie Jordan what can happen if you don't sell out but just wither away. I wish somebody will eventually fill those gaps. Maybe some Chinese and some Saudis?

 

Ok! I see your point. By buying Jordan Racing the Midland F1 Group did not have to put down the deposit that is required for new teams and also saved time in going through the hastle of the application process.

By 2006 there will be an F1 raing team sponsored by the Royal Family of Dubai. So that will fill in one of those gaps.

I am not a big fan of anything that comes with the Toyota badge and I am certainly not impressed with Toyota's F1 efforts. Having said that, 4 points is still 4 points!

 

I'm not sure the deal is 100% done.


From Atlas By Alan Baldwin Published at 18:05:56 GMT


Jordan Admits to Midland talks, but no deal yet. Eddie Jordan has made clear that he would welcome Russian-born billionaire Alex Shnaider buying into his Formula One team, even if a deal is not yet done.

"I've always held talks on an ongoing basis with people interested in taking the team forward," said the Irish entrepreneur on Monday. "Nothing has been done at this stage but I have met Alex a couple of times and I like him.

"I believe he would gain something from an involvement with Jordan and he is certainly someone who would be able to help the team become more competitive," he said.

Autosport.com reported at the weekend that a deal had been agreed between the two with an announcement expected next Sunday.

The Guardian newspaper reported that Shnaider's Midland Group was set to buy a 49.9 percent stake in the Silverstone-based team from the Irish investment company Merrion capital.

Shnaider, a 36-year-old naturalised Canadian citizen who grew up in Israel, has made a fortune through the privately-owned Midland Group which has extensive interests across Russia, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

The company is involved mostly in old-fashioned heavy industries, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and scrap metal dealing. Toronto-based Shnaider is already planning to enter Formula One in 2006 with a Midland team and said in October that he was prepared for the venture to cost his company at least $100 million a year.

Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin's grandson was recently recruited as marketing director for a team to be run in Britain by Formula Three team boss Trevor Carlin with a car designed by Dallara in Italy.

Buying a stake in Jordan would relieve Shnaider of the obligation to pay a mandatory $48 million bond to enter the sport as a new team while also conferring immediate rights to television income.

Jordan ha been one of Formula One's most colourful characters since his team's debut in 1991 and is also the man who gave seven times World Champion Michael Schumacher his Grand Prix debut that same year.

But the team, who soared to third place in the 1999 Championship, are now struggling and looked in danger of going under last year until Toyota stepped in with an offer to provide affordable engines.

Jordan said last week that he would be happy to bring in new partners even if it meant diluting his own equity stake and expected to focus more on the commercial side in future.

 

Best thing to happen to the team in years. Eddie Jordan was never serious enough about the racing. Yes he ran a great little private team, but in the end winning did not burn a big enough hole in his heart.

It can be done, look at Frank Williams and Ron Dennis (his Project 4 team effectively took over McLaren) and even Sauber, but you need to be 100% uncompromising that winning is why you are there, not just as a presence, etc.

I have no simpathy for anybody involved in the sport that fails due to the passion not running deep enough ... and that is the only reason you will fail. Enzo Ferrari used to get pissed with Maserati complaining about cash problems and pulling in and out of motor sport. Enzo quite rightly stated that money was never the issue, they just did not want to win bad enough ... and if you do, the money is just one issue to be solved!

I even put myself in that failing group ... I did not want to win badly enough, hence I no longer race and my dip into motor racing was confined to club level. In the end most of us (unless handicapped or something) can do anything, you just have to want it soooooo bad it hurts.

Pete