OCTOBER 9, 2003

Anderson heading for semi-retirement

Jordan's head of engineering Gary Anderson says that he is planning to step back from the day-to-day business of the Jordan team and says it is not really retirement.

Jordan's head of engineering Gary Anderson says that he is planning to step back from the day-to-day business of the Jordan team but will still be around to solve problems if the team require his services. Anderson says it is not really retirement but that he was keen to have more time off.

The 52-year-old Ulsterman has been working in F1 on and off since the early 1970s when he joined Brabham as a mechanic and then learned to design cars, working alongside Gordon Murray. He later started his own racing car company called Anson which struggled for money but nonetheless did well in Formula 3 in the early 1980s although not well enough to become an established rival to Ralt or to Reynard. In the mid-1980s Anderson went to America to be chief engineer with the Galles Indycar team and then returned to Europe with Galles driver Roberto Moreno to win the European Formula 3000 title with a team called Bromley Motorsport. The modifications that Anderson made to the Reynard chassis so impressed Adrian Reynard that he hired Anderson to design the 1989 and 1990 Reynard Formula 3000 chassis and it was while doing this that he began working closely with Eddie Jordan, an old enemy from Formula 3 days. In the end Jordan asked Anderson to design the first Jordan Grand Prix car and the 7-Up Jordan-Ford 191 was a great success and in 1992 Anderson became technical director of the young team. He remained with Jordan until 1998 when he moved to Stewart and was there when the team was sold to Ford. He left at the end of 2000 and then spent a year back in the United States before returning to Jordan in 2002.

It is believed that one of the reasons to stand back is that Anderson is frustrated that without more money the team cannot do as well as it should be doing.