JULY 21, 2005

Jordan's race against time

Jordan F1 has 10 days in which to complete its engine deal with Toyota and Williams is waiting quietly on the sidelines, keen to see whether the Russian-owned team will hit the deadline. The deal between Jordan and Toyota is agreed but it depends on payments being made and Jordan has been struggling for cash in recent months as the Russians behind the Midland Group do not seem interested in coming up with the cash and instead are trying to sell the team. They want $66m so it is not surprising that they are having trouble finding a buyer.

There are several possible buyers out there but only if the price comes down to around $30m.

The good news for Jordan is that even if the Toyota deal falls out of bed, which will probably happen because due dilligence is going to take time when a deal is done, there is an engine deal waiting from Cosworth. If Jordan does put the Toyota deal together in time, Williams will probably have to use Cosworths in 2006, before switching to Toyota in 2007.

What is interesting is that Jordan has signed the Concorde Agreement extension deal. This might have been done to enable the team to borrow money (perhaps from Bernie Ecclestone) to pay for the engines without help from Russia.

A new buyer might consider a Cosworth deal more attractive because the engines can be badged and there have been rumours that David Richards is looking at taking Hyundai into F1 using Jordan as a vehicle. For the Korean car maker a deal with Cosworth would be a good place to start.