History: Jordan
were formed in 1981 and raced in the F3000 series, they made the move into
F1 in 1991. In 1992 Jordan had Yamaha works engines but scored only one
championship point in that season. In 1993 they had Hart engines. In 1994
Jordan signed Rubens Barrichello and Eddie Irvine as their drivers, and
they continued to drive for the team into the 1995 season. The Canadian
GP. was a great day for Jordan when Barrichello finished second and Irvine
finished third.
In 1997 Jordan, now with a Peugeot
engine, signed Ralf Schumacher and Giancarlo Fisichella. Ralf Schumacher
finished third in his third GP. in Argentina. Fisichella put in the
fastest lap during the Spanish GP. then followed this with a third at the
Canadian GP. then second at the Belgian GP.
In 1998 Mike Gascoyne joined the team
from Tyrrell and soon took over as Technical Director. Jordan signed Damon
Hill for the 1998 season from the Arrows team, at the French GP. the team
had it's best ever day when Hill gave the team it's first ever win and
Ralf Schumacher finished second.
Jordan had the pairing of Damon Hill and
Heinz-Harald Frentzen in 1999, Frentzen had a good season with a second
place followed by a third, he also had wins at the French and Italian GP's
and finished third overall in the drivers championship. Hill had a bad
season and was soon talking of retirement, by the end of the season the
once good relationship with Eddie Jordan was at an all time low.
The
2000 season stared with great optimism that the team would carry on
building on the success of last year when they finished third in the
constructors table and Frentzen was third in the drivers
championship. The first race of the season saw both the Jordan's
retire with mechanical problems, but in round two they finished
third and fourth. The rest of the season can only be described as a
disaster for the team. Between the two drivers they had eleven
mechanical failures and five crashes. Frentzen finished third again
in round fifteen at Indianapolis but the team just scored the odd
one point here and there throughout the season. The
team finished sixth overall with only
seventeen points, Frentzen finished ninth in the drivers table and Trulli
finished equal tenth.
In
2001 the team acquired Works Honda engines and the driver line up remained the
same, Ricardo Zonta joined the team as test driver from BAR. Heinz-Harald Frentzen was
sacked by the team just before the German GP., he was replaced by
test driver Ricardo Zonta. Then in August Jean Alesi joined the
team from Prost to replace Heinz-Harald Frentzen,
former Test Driver Ricardo Zonta who was promoted to
Driver was then demoted back down to test driver. Trulli finished
the year =7th in the drivers championship and the team finished
fifth in the constructors championship.
This year Jarno Trulli
has left the team and joined Renault and Jean Alesi has retired.
Giancarlo Fisichella has re-joined the team from Benneton (now
Renault) and new driver Takuma Sato has joined the Jordan team. The
team still have works Honda engines, will they move further up the
constructors table this year? and can they finish ahead of the other
Honda engine team BAR? |