JULY 15, 1996

Gary Anderson "on holiday"

JULY is traditionally the time when Formula 1 engineers change jobs. This gives them a few weeks to settle into their new teams before they begin work on the design process for the 1997 cars, which normally begins in late August/early September.

There was much speculation at Silverstone that Jordan Peugeot designer Gary Anderson may be on the move in the next few weeks after falling out with team boss Eddie Jordan. Further investigation revealed that the two had, indeed, had a confrontation but that it was purely because Eddie insisted that Gary take a holiday and Gary insisted that he should keep working. Jordan being the boss, Anderson headed home for a well-earned rest, leaving his young team of engineers to run the trackside engineering.

There is no doubt that Jordan does need to restructure its technical departments, it is growing so fast at the moment that things need to be reorganized, a situation highlighted recently by Martin Brundle.

"It is pretty complicated to understand the way things work at Jordan," said Martin. "There is not a pyramid structure of responsibility and it takes time to understand where you need to input information so that the result is what you are looking for. The system is perhaps going to change or evolve but, for the moment, it is pretty hard."

Anderson, who has been the key figure in Jordan's success to date, is a man in demand and may decide that he needs a new challenge away from Jordan, but it is just as likely that after a rest he will be back with ideas of how to restructure the team and design the 1997 car.

With several rival teams believed to be chasing Jordan's Peugeot engines in 1998, the team needs to act now to ensure a better showing in 1997.