JANUARY 27, 2004

Verstappen will not be at Jordan

The negotiations between Jordan Grand Prix and Jos Verstappen have come to a screeching halt with an announcement from Holland that the talks are off. The Verstappen management, headed by Trust owner Michel Perridon, are not happy with the contracts which Jordan is offering.

"We all have done out utmost to reach an agreement," said Verstappen. "However, at the moment it does not make sense to keep going with the discussion. I wish to reiterate that I have a group of fantastic people that help me. In particular Michael Perridon of Trust Computers has shown a total commitment in order to accomplish a positive outcome."

That said, there are bound to be questions about how the negotiations were handled as Verstappen has money and Jordan needs it. The fact that the Dutch announced that they had stopped talking with Minardi before Christmas resulted in the signing of Zsolt Baumgartner but left Verstappen with no option but to join Jordan or miss out on F1 in 2004.

Now it seems that Jos is not going to be around.

It may be that the Dutch hope that by pulling out of the talks they hope to panic Jordan into changing his terms...