Despite recently scoring their first win in nearly four years, Jordan are far from their glory days, and the Monaco Grand Prix was another example of the struggle the British team are going through. Atlas F1's Karl Ludvigsen reviews Jordan's situation and explains why it will take a superhuman effort to get the team back on track

During the Monaco race I heard one TV commentator tell the other that Formula One's business was buzzing again at the principality, where the heavy hitters like to meet and greet. New contracts were being closed right and left, he said. Jordan had made several new sponsorship deals, he added. Well, if it did I couldn't find any trace of them, even on EJ's team website.

I did learn that Eddie Jordan set out his stall at Monaco, all right. But it wasn't his showcase for potential sponsors. No, sirree. Instead, reported Atlas F1, he set up shop "in the streets of the busy principality, with the aim of halting the black-market sale of the team's old race gear and getting a bit of that cash for the team instead. He started the ball rolling by selling the wreck of the car crashed by Takuma Sato at last year's Austrian Grand Prix for £15,000 and has now set a price tag of £3,500 for the signed overalls that Giancarlo Fisichella wore for his Brazilian Grand Prix victory this year. All the proceeds are going back into the team to fund the race and test program."

Holy cow! A Jordan garage sale in Grand Prix racing's classiest venue! What can Jordan be thinking? This is the team that prides itself on its closeness to its fans, its accessibility to enthusiasts. And what is it doing? Trying to crack down on the so-called "black market" that keeps those fans from buying team goods at low prices! The least they could have done was offer the goods to the fans on their website first of all.

As for the funds being used for the racing program, this is a microdrop in a macrobucket. Jordan would have done better to have sold or auctioned its goods for a charity that's racing-related. Of course I realize that Jordan is hard up. How else could we explain these so-called "test drivers" that the team has booked? They are none other than F3000 drivers Zsolt Baumgartner, a Hungarian, and Jarek Janis of the Czech Republic. We can discount any contribution that they could make to the Jordan racing effort, apart from the fees they bring to the Silverstone-based team in return for some testing laps that may or may not help them get noticed.

Speaking of drivers, I was interested in Eddie Irvine's remarks at the weekend. Irvine was a real candidate for a seat at Jordan, but the money didn't materialize. "I thought he would take some money out of the bank and put it in the team," he said of the other Eddie. "He didn't want to invest in the team, and now he's paying the price." Jordan's reluctance to back his eponymous team is indeed all too evident in its deplorable performance.

Jordan's 11 points so far this year consist of a - let's face it - fluke win in Brazil for Fisichella and an eighth in Spain for Firman. At the rate Jordan is going - 10th and 12th at Monaco - it will be exceedingly lucky to pick up any more points the rest of this season. That's a far cry from its 61 points as recently as 1999 with Mugen-Honda engines, ranking them third among constructors. No wonder the talented Fisichella can't wait to jump ship if his new manager can come up with a deal with a top team.

The Jordans just couldn't muster the speed at Monaco. Their best laptimes were more than two seconds off those of Raikkonen and the Schumachers, while Firman's best was a good half-second off Fisichella's quickest lap. They seem to lack everything: power and grip alike. The Ford brass at Monaco could only take comfort from the fact that both cars finished, so they could be spotted on TV from time to time when they were being lapped by the leaders. Not a gratifying day out.

It will take a superhuman effort for Eddie Jordan to get this depressed racing team back on track. When your performance in Formula One starts to slide, sponsors run for the exits. Ford seems to be playing a waiting game, trying to decide whether or not to build a marketing effort on the Jordan-Ford team. Ford only likes to spend its marketing dollars if it's sure that the results are there. In this instance they are not, so far. If he's to get his team back in contention, Eddie Jordan may indeed have to dig into his personal bank account and spend some serious money on the development and testing of his 2004 car. He can already write off 2003.

About the author:
Long time columnist at Atlas F1, Karl Ludvigsen is an award-winning author and historian who managed racing programs for Fiat in America in the late 1970s and Ford of Europe in the early 1980s. He is the author of seven books about racing drivers and numerous books about classic racing cars and engines, all of which draw extensively on the many images in his Ludvigsen Library in Suffolk, England. This autumn will see publication of Karl's long-awaited work, the update of his epic Porsche - Excellence was Expected. It reveals for the first time details of the all-conquering McLaren-TAGs and the disastrous Footwork-Porsches. Information on the book and a pre-publication discount are available at the Robert Bentley website