JULY 29, 1996

John Boy on the move

JORDAN team manager John Walton - known as John Boy - is leaving the team shortly to take up a new position in the TWR Arrows organization. The 39-year-old Irishman worked as a mechanic on Eddie Jordan's Formula Ford 1600 cars in Ireland from 1970 onwards and stayed with Eddie when he came to England to race Formula 3 in 1980.

In 1982, John Boy joined the Toleman F1 team and stayed with the team right up until 1990, by which time it had become the Benetton team, and he was its chief mechanic. When Jordan entered F1 Walton went back to his old boss, initially as chief mechanic but since 1993 as team manager.

Walton seems to have been lured away from Jordan by the TWR/Arrows factory manager Gordon Message, with whom he worked for many years at Toleman/Benetton.