Friday October 25th, 2002

The Jordan team are confident ahead of the 2003 season despite deciding to sit out the November and December testing sessions while they concentrate all their efforts in the design of the new EJ13.

The Silverstone-based outfit, who this year finished in sixth place in the Constructors' Championship, have switched to Ford engines for the 2003 season after using Honda units for the past two seasons.

The Japanese manufacturer decided they wanted to concentrate on just one team next year and Jordan signed a deal to return to Ford engines after using them in their debut season in 1991. Honda will provide their engines exclusively to the British American Racing team.

Jordan's head of design and development Henri Durand said the team are confident the Ford unit will be among the best of the field and claimed that there was no need to create an hybrid chassis to test this year as they expect the new engine to be competitive from the start in the revolutionary EJ13.

"We have created a brand new design concept for the EJ13," said Durand. "In addition, the Ford Cosworth engine is comprehensively different from the Honda we used this year, so there will have to be an entirely new chassis and a new gearbox before we can run it.

"Since June we have been planning a mid-January launch and to date everything is on schedule. When you have a radically different package, it's irrelevant and impractical to build an interim car – something that is only done when you are keeping the basic ingredients the same.

"We are totally confident that the Ford Cosworth engine we have next year will be one of the best on the grid and one of the most reliable. As a result we simply do not have any technical reason to build an interim car."

Published at 14:48:01 GMT