FEBRUARY 7, 2005

Just who does what at Jordan and who has gone?

There have been lots of stories about mass defections at Jordan since the takeover by Midland F1. There is no doubt that this has caused some disruption but not nearly as much as is being reported. The team's technical director for the last two months Mark Smith has departed and also moving out is Richard O'Driscoll, the chief operating officer. His role is being taken by Adrian Burgess, who has been running Carlin Motorsport's Nissan World Series team in recent years. The chief mechanic Nick Burrows will be moving to a factory-based job and his role is to be taken by Ricky Taylor, who is also from the Carlin Nissan World Series team. Matt Deane, one of the team's number one mechanics, has moved to BAR. The team has lost Gerry Hughes to Red Bull Racing but has taken on two new race engineers Bradley Joyce joining the team from the Carlin Nissan World Series team and Paul Monaghan moving to Jordan from Renault F1 where he has been working since 2000. Prior to that he spent nine years with McLaren, where he worked with Renault technical director Bob Bell. James Robinson, the head of race and test engineering, is reported to be both with Jordan and to have left the team. We were unable to contact to Robinson to find out the truth about his current situation.

Mike Hall-Taylor, the head of marketing and brand development, has also left but Ian Phillips (head of business affairs) is still employed as is David Williams, the team's head of operations. The design team is largely unchanged with Mike Wroe (head of electronics), Simon Phillips (head of aerodynamics) and John McQuilliam (head of design) still in place.

The new team manager is Andrew Stevenson, the longest-serving member of the team, who has been with Jordan since 1987. He became team manager in December after the departure of Tim Edwards.

The team will shortly lose its press officer as well, Helen Temple having deciding to retire from F1.