Jordan 199 at Mondello Park - photos

Cheers folks. Two good reports here:

http://www.independent.ie/sport/jordan-car-for-mondello-extravaganza-26138707.html

http://www.independent.ie/sport/kennedys-left-buzzing-26138918.html

Tomas Scheckter won that day, didn't he?

Yep, the Leinster Trophy on the Sunday I think. I seem to remember everyone expecting him to do so, too. It meant nothing to me at the time, but Takuma Sato won on the Saturday and finished third on the Sunday.

two weeks later Jordan hosted an open day at the factory for Club Jordan members where all the fanclub members

I remember wishing I could have gone - too young though!

Incidently I thought that the retirements at Nurburgring were caused by driveshaft failures?

They both went down to electrical failures according to Wikipedia. EJ wrote the following in his autobiography: "A problem with the anti-stall device was to blame. It needed to be turned off as soon as the car got going from rest. Each time, without fail, Sam would say to Heinz, 'Press cancel, press cancel,' as a reminder. On this occasion, he simply said, 'You've 4.5 seconds on Ralf. Bring it home first'. No sooner had Sam said that than we heard Heinz reporting that the engine had cut out. It was the most sickening feeling to see the pictures of our car rolling to a halt."

Wish I had it to hand but I'm fairly sure I remember Motor Sport magazine once profiled the 199 and mentioned they'd found a grey area whereby they could get a form of launch control from the anti-stall or pit limiter, but it had to be cancelled afterwards like EJ wrote above. Heartbreaking.

Ancient thread, but I finally found that Motor Sport article where they talk about the 199's launch control. Really good piece.

Annoyingly, it seems I'm not allowed post hyperlinks. Try this: motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/november-2004/79/yellow-fever




At the first corner Hill suddenly slowed when his engine cut out, triggering a spectacular crash. But from pole Frentzen led in accomplished style. With rain clouds threatening he made a perfect pitstop, but after rejoining the track, he slowed to a crawl. The engine was dead, and the devastated driver abandoned ship and walked backed to the pits. Gascoyne and Michael are still cagey about what actually happened. In fact, four or five races earlier the team had introduced a system that allowed the drivers to make better starts on very low revs, using the anti-stall function to stop the engine bogging down.

"Let's say it was taking the interpretation of the anti-stall device to its limits," says Michael. "It was completely legal, and the FIA knew what we were doing. But they had a clarification for the following year to stop anyone doing it."

Gascoyne: "We were doing what everyone does, which was pushing the boundaries. It's part of being innovative."

The only thing the driver had to do was remember to cancel the function by pressing a button within 10 seconds of the start, or risk the engine cutting out. At the 'Ring, Hill simply forgot and paid the price at the first turn. Frentzen triggered the device when leaving the pitlane — it gave no benefit at that stage — and by co-incidence, he also failed to press the magic button.

Extraordinary footage here, folks. And not just David Kennedy almost writing the car off coming out of the final corner.

What a day.



http://motorsport.ie/2015/06/05/the-day-jordan-grand-prix-brought-their-f1-car-to-mondello/

Yep, that was Paul Stoddart's European Aviation team. He used that as a launchpad to buy Minardi shortly after. There was also a fantastic Jordan 194 there and other interesting bits and bobs. Must dig out the photos at some stage. Incredible sights and sounds.