Late November

It’s the winter season and a period of calm for F1 fans across the globe as they reflect on what was a classic season.

But here at Jordan things are as manic as ever as we construct a car that only a few months ago was a draft specification and a lots of people's ideas!

Work on next year’s challenger began in the wind-tunnel around the time of the British GP in mid-July. At this point we were still focusing most of our efforts on the EJ13. It’s only over the winter that all our attention is put towards next year’s new machine.

I’m chief designer at the team, but that in no way means I'm the only person coming up with improvements for the new car.

Altogether there are 25 designers – 15 here at Silverstone and ten at Brackley plus lots of technicians and mechanics all of whom make a valuable contribution.

At the moment we are almost ready to make the first chassis and the gearbox has also been successfully cast by our partners in the Midlands.

It’s all on schedule but that big sigh of relief will have to hold off until the car is ready – our deadline is the first week in February.

Shortly after that is the big press launch so the pressure’s on – after all we don’t want the world to be writing about a car that could “almost” pass as an F1 racer – we HAVE to be ready.

We haven't totally given up the old car yet.

This week we blew off the cobwebs and dusted them down for some testing in Jerez. A chance to test out some new drivers.

Unlike a lot of teams we have yet to sign our drivers for next year. Although the design of the EJ14 will fit most drivers however tall or short they are, it would be nice to know who will be driving as some parts of the car are driver-specific.

It makes our job that little bit harder, and we would always like a few more days to fit things in, as I’m sure every team can vouch for.

What we are keen to do this year more than any other which can be very time consuming is to carry out extensive mechnical testing on parts such as the suspension and front and rear wings.

Obviously after Ralph Firman’s accident at Brazil and then again at Hungary where his rear wing fell off we want to ensure that nothing of that magnitude happens again.

Brazil was a tough race for us. Of course we were delighted with Giancarlo Fisichella’s fantastic second place - which five days later became a win – but privately we weren’t celebrating because of Ralph Firman’s front suspension failure.

It could have been far worse but it certainly shakes you up to see that, especially from a TV screen at the factory rather than being there in person.

Again in Hungary we went through the emotions following Ralph’s rear suspension failure in practice. Unfortunately that was a huge accident and forced him out of the race.

Ralph was still injured two weeks later and had to miss the Italian GP too.

All this was hard to take in which is why this year extra emphasis will be on testing these vital components.

We have a great deal to be positive about though. We have had a meeting with Cosworth, our engine suppliers, this week and we are delighted they will be supplying us with engines much closer to the specification Jaguar will use.

It effectively means we are as close to a works deal as a customer could get, which is great.

We also had a meeting with a potential driver last Monday, someone with amazing talent who we regard very highly. But my lips are sealed!

Eddie Jordan was around for that meeting of course.

A lot of the time he's bombing around doing commercial deals to bring together the money. Pretty important stuff really as it's that that let's us get on and build and race cars.

You soon know if he's around. The factory fills up with laughter and more than a few swear words.

And he always wants the latest on the car’s developments – as long as it doesn’t cost too much. If it does, we wait for another swear word!

Eddie is very competitive, but so are we. We take huge pride in our work and do whatever it takes to get things done.

As a team we’re great, but get us on a football pitch and we fall apart! Just as well we play every Tuesday night then, we need the practice!

But don’t judge us on that. Instead follow us through the development of our new car as we go through what will certainly be some stressful but exciting times.