By Bigpip
May 5 2002

Interenet rumours insist that Jordan HAS lost it's title sponsor, engine supplier and a long term investor. DHL, Benson and Hedges and Honda have allegedly all jumped ship just 5 races into the season. Below is the full text of an e-mail received by this site.

From: waynemjoyce
To:
Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 9:55 AM
Subject: (BEN'S F1-LIST) JORDAN SWITCH ENGINE & MAIN SPONSORS !!!!!
From the FOSA yahoo group....

In a shock move Jordan has been abandoned by it's engine suppliers
Honda and also by it's main sponsors DHL and Deutche Post.

Rumours have been rife for a number of days that Honda were unhappy
with the work load of supplying two teams and so have dropped Jordan
in a bid to concentrate solely on the developing the BAR team, which Honda
directors believe is the stronger of the two.

Deutche Post and DHL have also redrawn their sponsorship, this was
then followed suit with Benson and Hedges issuing a statement to the
press that they have also ceased their Jordan deal.

Jordan spokesman: Ian Kennedy issued a statement commenting on the
loss of both engine deal and sponsors.

"F1 has become a large competitive business which needs good results
to secure the interests and financial investment of sponsors.
Unfortunately Jordan's lack of performance of late has not acommodated the type of
security that investors wish to be a part of and so it is my grim
duty to inform the press of the dramatic redrawal of both Honda and our other
sponsors.

We at Jordan were made aware of this situation by our investors some
time ago which allowed us to source other sponsors and get another
engine deal in the bag. The name of the new Engine dealer and replacement
sponsors will be released with the re-launch of the new livery today.
We hope our new sponsors will help us climb back up the ladder of
success to where our small but hard working team belong to be ! We
would like to thanks our previous sponsors for their loyalty over the last few
years and wish them in the best in any future ventures !"
He added "A press conference will be called later from Silverstone
at the livery launch."

Honda, Deutche Post / DHL have yet to release official statements
on the matter.
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I for one am unable to believe that this story is genuine.
If this was leaked on Friday, why has there been on reaction to it on any other internet website.
F1-live.com recently reported that Eddie Jordan was in Bonn at a major event with DHL.

The comments also include note of a new livery and re-launch.  Again, no reports have appeared on the web.

Autosport Magazine says that DHL are being chased by Mclaren as title sponsor and also that a number of Jordan's sponsorship deals are performance related, however if this is the case with Honda, why is the spectulation over Jordan rather than BAR?