APRIL 14, 2002

John Judd goes to CART with MG Rover

JOHN JUDD has landed a major new deal to supply MG Rover with engines for the CART series next year. The Rugby-based Engine Developments will design and a build a new 3.5-liter V8 which will compete with Toyota and a Cosworth-built engine as well although this has yet to be branded. CART says that there will be two other engine suppliers in 2003 but the identity of these firms is yet to be revealed. It is not impossible that one of them will be Nissan Infiniti (which is running in IRL with a similar engine at the moment).

The MG Rover engine will be supplied to whichever of the CART teams want the units. Judd, who turned 60 last week, has a long record as an engine builder dating back to his apprenticeship with the Coventry Climax company. He then played an important role with Repco in the 1960s, the company winning two F1 titles with the Brabham team before beginning to work with Jack Brabham Conversions, developing Cosworth DFV engines. This company later became Engine Developments and was a major preparer of Cosworth engines in F1 and Indycar in the 1970s before starting to develop Formula 2 engines for Honda. Judd then began producing his own engines in F3000 and later in both F1 and CART. His F1 program was later linked to Yamaha and he continued to develop F1 V10s in 1998 and 1999, while in recent years the company has concentrated on touring car and sportscar engines.