Henri Durand + the EJ13

[billyblister]

Does anyone know just how good/bad is Henri Durand??
I know Jean Alesi is not his greatest admirer!!
The EJ13 is well underway (Gary Anderson Joked that they would design a car and leave a big whole in the back that would accomadate most F1 engines) but how good can a car with a customer engine be????

Answers on the back of a postcard please...

[ParkLife]

As good as the J199 with the customer Mugen? Bloody good car that one was, and it was Gary Andersons too don't forget.

[billyblister]

Oh happy days

[f1manoz]

If the new Jordan has a Cosworth bolted to its rear end, it could still be a good car, capable of points at least.

[Jordi]

The Arrows is also a car with a customer engine and it is a good car.

[billyblister]

not really good enough though is it?

[ParkLife]

I'd say it's not doing bad considering the budget it's been put together with and the amount of testing the things done.

[bosch!]

Anderson was never a great designer 199 good car EJ10 pile of poo! Mike Gascoigne said that the rear was fundamentaly wrong, and you have to beleive him as he redegined it and got much more speed out of it. Henry has worked with both Mclaren and Ferrari. did miricles with prost considering it had no money for 2 years. anderson could never stand back and look at his design objectively, could never acept others input. thats why EJ fired his ass! same was said about hamidy and EJ fired his ass too!

I dont know why (well i do acutaly) but i think that Henry has brought new modelling tools with him to jordan. One of their problems (for the last year or two) was that the car would not handle as predicted, they would design it test the concept build it and find that lemon wasnt only the colour of the paint job.

[billyblister]

Didn't Gascoigne design a pile of poo last year?? Engine aside.
The EJ10 was good just unreliable.
I think one of Jordan's problems is that their equipment may be a bit dated by now, maybe they have addressed this
Maybe i'm wrong

[ParkLife]

The EJ-10 was not a slow car. Didn't it qualify 4th in it's first race? (I think)

The problem with the car was that it was so unreliable that Jordan could not develop the car but instead had to devote every resource to making the thing reliable. When it actually got the reliablility, everyone else had moved on too much for Jordan to make up the difference.

Similar situation with every Jordan penned since the 199. The key to that car's success was it's bullet proof reliablility. They were developing the car from day one with speed in mind. And the results are there to be seen.

Of course that is the key to designing any performance part. There is a compromise between performance and reliability. It is easy to increase the performance of any part, however it is difficult to do this without compromising reliability / weight etc.

It is essential to get this balance right. Jordan did get it right in 97, 98 and 99, but have struggled with it since. Next year may see a return of form.

[billyblister]

boy did i hate that ej10 gearbox

[bosch!]

I dont think anybody designed last years Jordan. Gascoigne was off gardening from, cant remember but it seemed like from the end of the previous season. they dislodged hamidy from arrows (who then gardened for 6 months or so). his first major input was first raced at hungury i think and it was unstable according to, wasnt hungury alesi's first race? they say that EJ wasnt happy with the aero package as it unbalanced the car and this was not the predicted result (obviously i guess). they also say that where the relationship between EJ and hamidy started to go sour

I think the team needs some stability, personel wise as well as aero!!

[billyblister]

yes your right, maybe it was Austria, not sure - it was nicknamed the ej11B due to hamidy's imput but as you said it was more unstable

[RWC]

I often grimace and sometimes laugh at EJ for his pretty ordinary people skills.Alot of the people he's sacked ARE tallented-just not handled right.Anderson is the most obvious-a very good allround engineer that should NEVER again be allowed to run everything his way.Hamidy was a missunderstanding by EJ.He thought it was hamidy's brilliance that was showing through in that quick arrows,but it was much more mike coughlan's truly great suspension that made it better than it deserved to be(remember how good that car was on bumps and curves?)-i'm ready to be corrected if i got this abit wrong.Gascoine is the 'one that got away'!A VERY good allround designer that is allowed (mostly)to run things as he wants at renault(the only thing Flav does right?).I recall that jordan were happy to see the end of him-(mostly to do with his temper?if things aren't going right,he's grumpy-something that he admits to)

[bosch!]

Gascoigne has talent, could never understand why his stay with EJ was so brief. part of his temper is the aggression of a being a frustrated racing driver (like the old sir frank?).

Entrepreners are rarely forgiving people, most of them lack people skills (i was at the right hand of one for a couple of years, learnt a lot about the art of being a bas***d but dont miss it at all).

Talanted people left for other jobs and remarkabley ALL suceeded and went on to bigger and better things. It seemed that the experiance did them good! but the next employer got the benefit