In 2000, Eddie Jordan's Irish team entered its tenth season in Formula 1. For this reason, it was decided to abandon the classic nomenclature given to the single-seaters that had come out of the Silverstone factory up to that point, which refers to the year of use of the car, 199 for the '99 car, 198 for the '98 car and so on, to move on to the new "EJ10". Given the surprising results of '99, with the Irish team obtaining third place in the Constructors' Championship thanks to 2 victories and with the leading driver Frentzen able to fight for the championship until three races from the end, for the first season of the new millennium it was decided to make further investments to fight on equal terms with the more highly rated Ferrari and McLaren-Mercedes.
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| JORDAN EJ10, Jarno Trulli Suzuka, Japanese GP 2000 |
Eddie Jordan confirms Mike Gascoyne in the role of Technical Director, who arrived from Tyrrell in mid-'98 to replace the historic designer Gary Anderson, while the design of the new EJ10 is entrusted once again to Mark Smith, who has been with Jordan for 10 seasons. As in '99, the recalled Tim Holloway supports Gascoyne in his duties, Bob Bell continues to occupy the role of Technology Director and the Chief Aerodynamicist is John Iley. The large budget guaranteed by the sponsor Benson & Hedges, a brand of English cigarettes of the Gallaher Group produced in Lisnafillan in Northern Ireland, and the FIA proceeds due to the good performances of the previous year pushes Gascoyne and Smith to design a car that is "extreme" in every sector but, as often happens, difficult to set up and push to the limit. From an aesthetic point of view, the EJ10 does not differ much from the previous 199, also because the lines of modern Formula 1 cars tend to make all single-seaters practically the same, having to follow aerodynamic logics that do not leave much freedom to the designers' imagination.
JORDAN EJ10, Heinz-Harald Frentzen
Montecarlo, Monaco GP 2000
The small differences are only visible in the engine air intake, now triangular in shape and no longer detached from the car body, and in the two aerodynamic "chutes" placed laterally to the engine hood. The classic evolutions of chassis and suspensions, however, lead the car to work badly with Bridgestone tires, causing excessive wear due to the difficulty in getting them up to temperature. To overcome this problem, the "B" version of the EJ10 was brought to the track from the Austrian Grand Prix with a complete overhaul of the suspension and engine electronics. The engine that powered the Irish single-seater also in 2000 was still the V10 Mugen-Honda MF-301H evolved to the E version, although perhaps it would be better to define it as "involuted" given the lower power of the '99 D version due to the fact that, with the official return to Formula 1 of Honda as the sole supplier for the BAR team, Mugen-Honda communicated since January its intention to withdraw at the end of the season.
JORDAN EJ10, Heinz-Harald Frentzen
Suzuka, Japanese GP 2000
As for the drivers, the German Heinz-Harald Frentzen was confirmed and the Italian Jarno Trulli, arriving from Prost Grand Prix, was hired. Despite the quality of the car, with performances often on par with the more competitive Ferraris and McLaren-Mercedes, the two drivers suffered from the poor reliability of the single-seaters, forced to retire 16 times out of 34 starts. The main problems came above all from the electronics, which were also put under the magnifying glass by the FIA itself, after its president Max Mosley, during the weekend of the 2000 San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, declared that he had discovered that someone in 1999 had used the electronics to control the traction of the car in an illegal manner, specifying that fortunately whoever had committed these irregularities did not reach either first or second place in the world championship. Fueling the rumors about the Jordan Gran Prix team, third in the previous season, is the detail of the fuel filler flap that opened on several occasions during '99 during the race, with the suspicion that the speed limiter, by regulation intended to be activated only during pit-lane passages leading to the automatic opening of the aforementioned flap, was actually also used as an anti-spin device on the track. Despite the suspicions, nothing will ever be officially proven, leaving in the annals the third place to Eddie Jordan's team, the best result in its history in Formula 1.
JORDAN EJ10, Jarno Trulli
Interlagos, Brazilian GP 2000
Even the arrival of the “B” version of the single-seater, launched after Gascoyne’s departure for Benetton, did not bring any advantages and the best results were once again obtained by Frentzen, capable of climbing onto the lowest step of the podium twice. The season ended sadly with 17 points, against the 61 of the previous year, and a modest sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship, ahead only of the bottom-placed teams such as Arrows, Sauber, Jaguar, Minardi and Prost. With the Championship now over, on 13 December 2000, the new V10 Honda RA001 engine was installed on an EJ10, which from the 2001 season would equip the new single-seaters of Eddie Jordan's team.
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