APRIL 19, 2005

Investment at Jordan

The Midland Group has bought the Jordan windtunnel at Brackley, which was obviously not part of the original purchase deal between the Russian group and Eddie Jordan. The team says that it will now upgrade the tunnel to deal with 50% scale models. The move does not change the team's contractual situation with Dallara, which is going to build a car for the team for the 2006 season. Dallara has two windtunnels in Italy: a 40% facility and a 50% one. These are overseen by Dialma Zinelli, Dallara's head aerodynamicist. There is much demand for the windtunnels because of Dallara's range of products, including the lucrative Formula 3 market; the Indy Racing League and GP2.

The Jordan tunnel at Brackley is relatively old-fashioned in F1 terms and dates back to 1988 when it was built by March Engineering. It was sold to Leyton House the following year and was used to develop Adrian Newey's groundbreaking CG891 and various Indycars. It was later sold to March subsidiary Comtec before being bought former March boss Robin Herd, who used it to design of the 1991 Fondmetal F1 chassis and later Larrousse F1 cars. In 1995 it was used by the Forsythe Indycar team but was then sold to Jordan and updated in the course of 1997.

The Jordan team has been using the wind tunnel since the sale of the team but we hear that the purchase was made necessary after Jordan and the Russians fell out over something and Eddie decided that he was no longer interested in having the team use the facility.