JANUARY 21, 2002

New Jordan EJ-12 has Silverstone shakedown

THE Jordan Honda EJ12 today successfully completed its first shakedown test, running on the South Circuit at Silverstone, with Takuma Sato at the wheel.

Staff at the team's Silverstone factory worked throughout the weekend, completing the final build of Jordan's 2002 season challenger in the early hours of Monday morning. Just before lunch, Sato drove the EJ12 for the first time, completing a run up and down in-front of the excited group of on-lookers - engineers, mechanics, designers from the drawing office, and Jordan's Chief Executive, Eddie Jordan.

"EJ12 is a culmination of a tremendous amount of work by a group of dedicated engineers, designers, production staff and mechanics," explained Technical Director Eghbal Hamidy. "It is very pleasing to see it coming together in the way it did and we are all satisfied with today's first outing."

"Today was a productive first systems check of our new car" continued Head of Race and Test Engineering, Gary Anderson. "We are all looking forward to the three day test which commences tomorrow."

Commenting on his first run in the Jordan Honda EJ12, Takuma Sato said, "I am very happy to have completed this first shakedown. It was a very cold and windy day at Silverstone, but everyone at Jordan and Honda did a great job to have the car ready to run. I think we can do a lot of good work over the next three days of testing here."

The Jordan Honda EJ12 is an entirely new design based on its predecessor, the EJ11. A new carbon fibre monocoque is complemented by a dramatic looking aerodynamic package featuring a swooping front nose section, while the all-new Honda RA002E engine is mated to a revised seven-speed Jordan transmission.