MAY 31, 1999

Jordan and Honda

ALTHOUGH it has been announced that Jordan will have Mugen-prepared Honda V10 engines for the 2000 and 2001 Formula 1 seasons, there is still some mystery as to exactly what engines these will be.

ALTHOUGH it has been announced that Jordan will have Mugen-prepared Honda V10 engines for the 2000 and 2001 Formula 1 seasons, there is still some mystery as to exactly what engines these will be. Jordan says that they will be same engines as those being supplied to British American Racing but will feature different electronics and will be prepared by Mugen rather than by Honda R&D. This arrangement allows BAR to claim that they are the factory team, while in reality they will be getting the same basic engines as Jordan.

Our sources say that Jordan did the deal for the new engines as long ago as February but that the news was kept secret while Honda decided what to do about its "factory" effort.

Jordan is expected to run the new engines for the first time later this summer and we believe that they will even be raced before the end of the year by Damon Hill and Heinz-Harald Frentzen. This would certainly explain the large amount of time which Jordan technical director Mike Gascoyne has been spending in Japan in recent months.