Changes coming at Jordan Grand Prix

OUR spies tell us that there are to be changes at Jordan Grand Prix as a result of the team's disappointing performances this year. We have heard that the team is to have a new chief operating officer and that the role will be filled by a longtime Jordan associate called John Putt. He has been involved in the team in the past, advising Jordan on his management structure and it seems that EJ has finally convinced him to join the business full-time. While the appointment is expected to be presented as evidence of further growth at Jordan, it remains to be seen what will happen as existing joint managing-director Trevor Foster is unlikely to be very happy at the appointment as it will inevitably mean that he loses some of his influence within the team.

If Foster was to come on to the market there would be no shortage of teams which might be interested with the best offer likely to come from British American Racing which has plenty of directors but no-one with much Foster's experience in charge of the racing team. As the two teams are located close to one another it would not be a huge upheaval for Foster. The 48-year-old has been involved in racing since the early 1970s, although he took several years off in the early 1980s running a Ferrari dealership and then his own team in Formula Ford and Formula 3. In 1989 he joined Jordan's Formula 3000 operation as team manager and race engineer and was Jordan Grand Prix's first team manager. He left to join Team Lotus in 1993 but returned to Jordan as general manager in 1996 and has been joint MD for the last two years.