Jordan announce Heidfeld as driver

Ralph Firman and Allan McNish look set to miss out as Jordan announced Nick Heidfeld as one of their drivers for this season.

The Silverstone-based team are also poised to confirm Jos Verstappen will be in the other seat, even though talks with the Dutchman broke down earlier this week.

Firman and McNish had been hoping to land one of the other drives at Jordan, the only team still with vacancies for 2004.

It will leave McLaren’s David Coulthard and BAR’s Jenson Button as the only British drivers on the grid this season – last year there were four.

Verstappen could be announced before the new car is rolled out at Silverstone on Wednesday.

He broke off talks with Eddie Jordan just a few days ago seemingly giving hope to either Firman or McNish.

But Verstappen had nowhere else to go if he wanted to prolong his F1 career while the £5m (€7.3m) in sponsorship he will bring is a much needed boost for the team.

Firman, who scored one point in his debut season with Jordan last year, and McNish – who had a single season with Toyota in 2002 – could now both struggle to ever get back into F1.