JULY 17, 2000

Holloway takes key role as Gascoyne goes

JORDAN technical director Mike Gascoyne is expected to sit out the rest of this season on "gardening leave" before he takes up his next appointment as the new technical director of Benetton Formula. Gascoyne was due to stay on at Jordan until the end of his contract in July 2001 but it was always thought unlikely that this arrangement would work and the team has now decided to hand control of the design of the EJ11 to chief engineer Tim Holloway.

A former rocket scientist with the Ministry of Defence, Holloway joined March Engineering in 1975 starting as a toolmaker and working his way up through the design departments to become a track engineer in Formula 2 in the mid 1980s. By 1987 he had become director of engineering with the March F1 team. The team was then taken over by the Leyton House company from Japan and Holloway eventually left and went on to become a partner in an independent design company called FometÊ1, designing a Formula 1 car for Gabriele Rumi's Fondmetal F1 team. That deal lasted only one year and then the company became Larrousse UK Ltd. and designed the Larrousse LC92. The relationship with Larrousse continued until the end of 1994 after which Holloway joined the Jordan team.

Holloway will oversee the design of the new car, working with mechanical designers Mark Smith and John McQuilliam, aerodynamicist John Iley and the head of research and development Bob Bell.