MAY 8, 2000

Michael to be chief designer at Jordan

AUSTRALIAN engineer Sam Michael is expected to become chief designer of Jordan Grand Prix at the end of the year. The 29-year-old has been working in Formula 1 since 1993 when he joined Peter Wright's technical team, doing dataÊacquisition and lap simulation work for Team Lotus.

At the end of 1994 Team Lotus went out of business and Michael moved on to Jordan where he has been ever since. Since then he has held a variety of different posts in the company in order to broaden his understanding of all technical aspects of the sport.

Our spies within the team say that there is no intention of the team appointing a new technical director and that the job will be done by current joint managing-director Trevor Foster, who has a background as an engineer and as a manager in F1.

Gascoyne is not due to move to Benetton until the middle of 2001 but he is expected to leave Jordan at the end of this season as the team is not keen for him to know too much about its activities in the future.

The Jordan bosses say they are confident that other engineers will not follow Gascoyne to Benetton but there is a distinct possibility that two or three of the team will move.