Eddie Jordan explains dilemma

Eddie Jordan has cast light on his controversial sacking of German driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen in 2001, saying that he did it to save his Formula One team’s Honda engine supply.

“People didn’t understand the Frentzen situation,” the Irishman, who sold his team to Russian-born Canadian businessman Alex Shnaider last month, told a Sunday newspaper.

“At the time I couldn’t let him renew the contract because my only way of holding onto the Honda engine was by giving (Japan’s Takuma) Sato the drive.”

Jordan, to be renamed Midland in 2006, will be launching their new car in Moscow’s Red Square on Friday next. The season starts in Melbourne on March 6.