Carlin quits as Jordan sporting director

TREVOR CARLIN has stepped down as sporting director of the troubled Jordan Formula One team, it was announced yesterday.

Carlin took over at Jordan as part of the Midland Group’s winter buy-out of the team but has endured an unhappy start to life in Formula One.

Jordan have struggled at the back of the grid, with even Minardi beating them in qualifying recently, and paddock gossip over a potential Midland pull-out has been unsettling.

Jordan announced Carlin had quit his post with immediate effect to concentrate on his Carlin Motorsport Formula Three team. He will be replaced by Adrian Burgess, who is promoted from sporting manager.

Carlin said: “I am very pleased to be involved in the whole Midland F1 project from its conception, and I hand over my role as sporting director at Jordan Grand Prix to Adrian Burgess, knowing he will do a superb job.

“[Team owner] Alex Shnaider and [managing director] Colin Kolles have a very clear vision of where they want to take Midland F1 and the purchase of the Jordan Grand Prix team was the first step.”

Kolles revealed Carlin will still advise the team and thanked him for getting Midland’s Formula One dream up and running.

He said: “I want to thank Trevor Carlin for the exceptional work he has done to bring Jordan Grand Prix back on track. I understand his reasons for stepping down, though his departure creates a void, within the team and for me personally. We have worked together for several years and I consider him a trusted friend and colleague.

“I am grateful he was able to nurture a talent like Adrian Burgess, who brings valuable and relevant skills to the team. I have followed Adrian’s career for the last five years and am proud we are being given the chance to make use of his impressive experience.

“As I have always maintained, our situation of being in a transition year gives us the unique opportunity to try different options to ensure that next year, when the team will race as Midland F1, we will be able to be competitive from the very beginning.

“With Adrian at the helm of the race and test divisions and Trevor Carlin in the background as our senior advisor, I am confident we can achieve our objectives.”

Elsewhere, the Williams team have gone on the attack against engine partner BMW, with co-owner Patrick Head adding his voice of dissatisfaction with the German company to his partner’s, Frank Williams.

Williams said this week the relationship with BMW is the most hostile his team had ever experienced with an engine partner.

But Head last night went further and suggested the German car maker is blaming the Williams team for problems of their own doing and revealed that Williams had begun talking to other manufacturers in case BMW and Williams decide to part ways.

“We adopt the same strategy as [BMW], and our doubts are especially about the way they handle the engine’s power,” Head said.

“Obviously yes [we are talking to others], since BMW decided to talk publicly about their dissatisfaction in their relationship with the Williams team. This is something I personally consider to be extremely unprofessional.

“I haven’t been very well impressed by this attitude, which is when a constructor pretends that every problem comes from the car and not from the engine. When the car always starts [races] badly, in my opinion it’s more likely that it depends on the engine’s control systems rather than the car’s.

“Unfortunately our partner chose to tell people they are perfect while accusing us. This is honestly something which, besides being very unprofessional, shows very little character. So, with this situation ... I admit that yes, we have spoken to a certain number of people.”

Head would not reveal which suppliers Williams have spoken to, but said he believes the BMW engine today is not among the leading engines in Formula One, and accused BMW’s motorsport director, Mario Theissen, of mistreating the relationship with Williams.

“BMW say they have the best of everything, but it’s not true,” Head said.

“In my opinion, we should work like a united family, but instead this doesn’t happen at all. In the last three years we’ve developed a starting system together - 50% ourselves and 50% them.

“But when the car starts badly they are very ready to accuse; they never talk about ‘our engine’ or ‘our clutch’ or whatever. I think this is Mario Theissen’s approach, and it’s a dishonest approach. We must live with this way of behaving of theirs, but we can’t act the same way.”