This week's Grapevine brings you information fresh from the paddock on: Jordan: Balancing the Books BMW Playing the Percentages

Jordan: Balancing the Books

Deutsche Post's withdrawal from Formula One has surprised a lot of the sport's followers, who believed that the sponsor, via their DHL label, was committed to the season ahead, and anticipated their support being the key to the Cosworth engine deal - besides making up a significant proportion of Jordan's budget for 2003. Now, in hindsight, there's a heap more clarity on Jordan's position, and actions over the last year.

The team laid off one eighth of their staff, paring close to two million off the personnel bills, earlier in the season. At the time, Eddie Jordan allowed that budgetary constraints were a factor, even as he put a positive spin on the improved lines of communication that the restructuring offered. Given the difficult climate of the time, and the new team's focus on developing the car, it was all too easy to understand this to be an immediate measure to ensure the company met its budget requirements for the year. Of course, now it is apparent that Jordan was thinking well ahead of the game, and preparing himself for taking the fight in to 2003.

The sounds coming from Jordan now are the same as those after Japan, reflecting the team's budget as reported in Commercial Reality. Everything is in place for putting together next year's car, but they still need to establish the funds to develop it through the season. This does make sense: between the money from the FIA, funds trimmed off this year's budget, and the income that the second driver brings, the team can certainly get to the grid in Australia.

The decision not to test until the new car is ready was a simple one. The new engine requires a complete redesign of the back end of the car; putting together an interim chassis would prove relatively little, but require considerable expenditure, even before it turned a wheel. This way, the reduced staff have only the single focus of getting the new car ready and on track, before getting it working ahead of Australia.

Returning to the 'second driver' and the funds he brings, Jordan appears to be facing up to the tough decision by making it a simple play on the net cash income the driver commands from sponsors. As things stand, the team appear to be attempting to talk Benson and Hedges back into the title sponsor role, with Eddie Irvine as bait. B&H is looking for a British driver to fill that seat, and apparently offered to stump up an additional five million pounds sterling to pay for him. However, in order to secure sufficient budget to develop the car and test properly next year, Jordan need at least twelve more, plus whatever the driver is paid in salary. Needless to say, talking that extra seven million from any sponsor in this climate, even with the potential offer of the title spot, is like talking blood out of a stone.

That's not the only route forward. Takuma Sato's performance at Suzuka has sparked some interest in Japan, and there has been some interest shown for sponsoring the team. However, the divorcing the serious money from strings - specifically, Sato's position in the team - is proving troublesome. At this stage, there are a number of feelers from potential sponsors, but little in the way of promised, let alone realised funds.

Besides pursuing funds tied to the drivers, Jordan are looking for someone to fill the title role. Whilst B&H are someone to be considered in the short term, picking up a longer term deal is something that has to be pursued.

Never one to turn down the challenge, Jordan seems intent on bringing Coca-Cola to the sport, and continue to maintain a dialogue with the company. Coca-Cola's involvement in F3000 - as title sponsors of the Nordic Racing team - raises the glimmer of hope that they might consider an F1 programme, and Jordan is working hard to ensure his team are the best option for promoting the brand. Ferrari being the obvious favourite.

Staying with the soft drinks theme, Jordan is believed to have maintained contact with one of the team0s original sponsors, now a Coca-Cola rival: Doctor Pepper/7Up Inc. Since Phillip Morris sold the subsidiary to Cadbury Schweppes plc, in 1995, there has been little chance of the brands being seen back in Formula One, as 7Up in particular has been targeted at every younger audiences. However, the company's Dr Pepper campaign is working on massively increasing exposure, without dropping the youth appeal, so Formula One has a significant marketing appeal.

There are other potential sponsors being pursued, but the prospect of bringing in a backer who can offer the sort of serious money that the manufacturer supported teams work with is certainly top of Jordan's wish list for this Christmas!

BMW Playing the Percentages

When BMW announced that their new engine has already run over 1200 km, the Ferrari engine boffins were uncertain what to make of the news.

Considering its official debut, shortly before the last Grand Prix, that either means BMW-Williams ran an improbable number of miles in the final test of the season, or the figure includes the miles run on dynamometers, in which case six race distances in six weeks is, frankly, not even worthy of mention.

As it happens, BMW are not worried what the competition make of their press releases - those figures were for the benefit of the public, and are only intended to let Average Joe know that BMW are ahead of the game. Behind the scenes, it's not quite the simple story that makes the press release.

So far, the unit has largely lived up to its design brief. This is not the first BMW engine to come in over-weight - but it is developing more power than that brief specified. Continued effort from the engineers is expected to shave mass off, and remove the excess kilo, probably by February, but certainly before the new season starts.

Where things are really hitting the mark, though, is reliability. Going into 2003, the aim was to have an engine that will complete at least 14 of the 17 races. So far, the unit BMW have put together is looking set to be 85% reliable, when run flat out over the race distance. And the work going into the unit now is a good indication of how the figures are met.

One of the features of the top two engines is a "boost" button - where the driver can turn the power up slightly, offering a few more horsepower at the risk of blowing up the unit. With modern design and material analysis, the engines are produced to such high tolerance that BMW can take the data from a few thousand miles of testing, and set the "normal" power level to ensure the engine meets the reliability requirements. Running leaner, particularly when accompanied by short shifting, reduces the power generated, and significantly improves the reliability. Turning the dial the other way offers the "boost."

That's not to say testing will all go smoothly: until the data has been acquired, and more to the point, any issues in the process of manufacturing the parts smoother out, the life expectancy of the average unit is going to be far less certain! But no matter whether they look at it, BMW are certain that the new engine is very good. Whether it will be enough to put Williams on a par with Ferrari, well, that's going to be a very interesting question.