SEPTEMBER 21, 2004

Glock in for Pantano?

All the excitement about Jacques Villeneuve and Jarno Trulli last week seems to have obscured another story which has been developing quietly in recent days at Jordan Grand Prix. Our sources suggest that we are likely to see a change of driver in Shanghai with Giorgio Pantano standing down and Timo Glock taking over as team mate to Nick Heidfeld. It is not clear whether Glock will be replaced as the test driver but that does not look very likely. Glock did a day of testing last week at Silverstone in preparation for China, which seemed odd at the time, as usually the regular drivers would have been very keen to do the work, as the team does not get to do many tests.

We hear that Pantano has decided to move on because there were no guarantees for a drive next year and there is little point in trying to make an impression with the current Jordan-Ford package. Pantano has had a very disappointing season in F1 and it seems that the Italian has decided that his future is probably going to be in the United States of America, where there may be some openings in the Champ Car series.

The Jordan team has yet to confirm the change of driver.