Jordan Gone/Going Bankrupt????

[Super Tourer]

According to autosport.com Jordan will not have a title sponsor for 2003 after all.

http://www.autosport.com/newsitem.asp?id=21812&s=54

UK team Jordan Grand Prix is ready to contest the 2003 F1 season without a title sponsor, and is in negotiations with three potential backers for 2004. According to commercial director Mark Gallagher, the team can compete this year without the £20m a title sponsor might have brought, thanks to the FIA's cost-cutting rule changes and the FOM decision to redistribute TV revenues [Jan 17] to the advantage of Jordan (and Minardi).

[Miss Hardt]

Is it just me or each single motorsport disclipline is suddenly in crisis?

[Red]

Actually each professional sport, not necessarily motorsport is in some sort of a crisis.

[Bononi]

Actually is a world wide crisis...

[Speeddemon555]

The teams are falling like flies. They should put the F3000 cars in the F1 field.

[mirwin]

I think Jordan will survive because all the team bosses have agreed to cut costs. This is what seems to be the difference between F1 and other big sports. I have lost interest in baseball, mainly because I feel that the players are way overpaid for what they do. Teams are losing huge amounts of money ($50 million a year in Toronto), but nothing is being done to rectify the situation. Usually raising ticket prices is the solution, although with declining attendance this doesn't help. The more the teams can work together to control their budgets, the stronger the sport will become.

[Armco Bender]

the team can compete this year without the £20m a title sponsor might have brought,

If they almost went under last year with major sponsors do they think they can really get through the year without one?,costs may have been reduced this year(and thanks to Uncle Bernies generosity), but not that much.One would think their precarious financial state has scared away sponsors,who would want to outlay £20m and find your investment goes belly up half through the season,a la Orange with Arrows.
Maybe they are going busking at each GP to raise some funds

[KA]

I don't think the lack of an major title sponsor is too much of a problem, so long as the overall package of sponsorship adds up - it doesn't really matter whether £20m comes from a single major sponsor, or is made up from smaller sums from a group of sponsors, what matters is that the the money's there....

[Armco Bender]

Interesting twist from the Belfast Telegraph,the title of this thread may have been very close to the mark after all.

"Motorsport: Birrane wants to be bigger wheel

By Martin McCarthy


MARTIN Birrane, owner of the Lola racing cars, has emerged as the key player in the bid by Ralph Firman jr. to land the second Jordan drive.

With the Australian Grand Prix just five weeks away, time is running out for all parties, but the fine detail has still to be sorted before the 27-year-old from Norfolk is finally installed.

Eddie Jordan and Firman's father, Ralph Sr., go back a long way. In 1979, Eddie, Ralph and Belfastman John Uprichard masterminded the launch into Ireland of Firman's Van Diemen Formula Ford racing cars.

Firman also has a strong Irish connection in that his wife Angie, an able businesswoman herself, came from Kildare, where the cache of racing spares where kept for Ireland.While the Firman signing is being suggested as a done deal, there remains a stumbling block.

Firman, the reigning Formula Nippon champion, comes with some Japanese money plus support from a Barbados hotel group -- but Mayo-born property developer Martin Birrane is involved, too, and is looking for an involvement in the deal.

The problem is he is interested in a stake in the team. With US investment bank, Warman Pincus, holding 49 per cent of Jordan, any new investor is likely to mean that EJ's majorityshare is no more.

After 25 years of being his own man, that is sticking in EJ's craw. However, with money exceedingly difficult to find at the moment - and the team costing £1m a week to run - Jordan may have to listen to what Firman and Birrane have to offer.

Firman could be announced imminently and if he is, it may mean that Jordan Grand Prix is entering a totally new era - one where EJ is no longer the undisputed master."