By Phil Giles
October 12 2003

The Japanese Grand Prix saw Jordan's championship year end with 13 championship points and only 9th place in the Constructors Championship. The day's race didn't give Giancarlo the send of he would have wanted but certainly may have expected.  Fuel problems saw the Italian retiring from the race on lap 34 having run out of the stuff.  Ralph also suffered from a fuel pickup problem but managed to bring the car home.

"That was an unfortunate end to the season." Said Ralph.  "I had a fuel rig problem in the pit stop and a pick-up problem in the fuel tank, which meant in my second stint I had to carry a lot more fuel than planned. Nevertheless, the team have done a good job all year and I’ve really enjoyed working with them - hopefully I can look forward to a long future with them."

Giancarlo said: "The car just cut out, it seemed to be a fuel problem. It wasn’t going too badly before that, in fact I was having quite a good race as the car balance was quite reasonable. Unfortunately it was my last race with Jordan and we didn’t get to the end so I’m a bit disappointed, but that’s life. I’d like to say thank you very much to the team and I wish every one of them all the best and I hope we both have better seasons next year."

Gary Anderson: "I can’t deny that was a disappointment. In Ralph’s first pit stop we had a problem with the fuel rig connector which lost a lot of time for him. We were forced to pit early as well because he had a fuel pick-up problem - we think one of the pumps in the tank failed - and he had to run with quite a high fuel load to the end, to try and keep it from cutting out. In Giancarlo’s first stop we didn’t get the quantity of fuel we thought we had during refuelling, so he was a lap short and ran out of fuel just before his second stop."

"There have been a lot of lessons learnt this year and the whole team is already working very hard to ensure we come back next year with a much more competitive package."

There were stories earlier in the year that Gary had handed his notice to Eddie.  While not leaving Jordan entirely, Gary has decided to take a semi-retirement from the sport.

"On a personal note I’d like to thank the team and all my friends in Formula One, for some very memorable years. As I’m now heading to semi-retirement I won’t see everyone as often but I’ll certainly pop up now and again and hopefully I’ll have a little bit more time for that little glass of red wine I’ve enjoyed with many of you over the years!"

We wish Gary all the best for the future and hope that we'll see him in the garages at Silverstone every now and again.