Jordan 196 Peugeot Technical Review

"I shouldn't say that we've made something radically new but some parts of our car have changed very signgificantly. I think that just in this areas we'll achieve the greatest advance".

With such a foggy phrase the Jordan's technical director Gary Anderson has presented to the audience the new car of an Irish team in the middle of January 1996.

The privacy in the modern Formula One is very strong. The designers work is surrounded with such a dense curtain of a secret and the end result - the cars - are so similar against each other that sometimes I began to doubt: maybe all this privacy is necessary only to justify the fabulous fees?

Launch of the new Jordan 196 Peugeot

So let's try to get accustomed to new Jordan 196. As far as the Iron Curtain surrounded a small designer office in Silverstone, will allow us.

As contrasted to the previous model, a new Jordan 196 has three essential external differences: reinforced sides of the cockpit, a nose became more raised and double air intakes on each side. First was dictated by the new technical regulations and, as Anderson considers, has not any considerable influence on the characteristics of the car. But Ross Brown, former Benetton designer, has accused his Jordan and Williams colleagues that they have designed too "small-sized" cockpit, and said that it gives to their pilots advantage per 0,3-0,4 seconds within a lap.

A new model's nose has raised for safety reasons too. It was planned in the autumn to increase of cross-sectional area of a cockpit (to eliminate dangerous "needle-shaped" noses such as McLaren'95). But then novelty have been puted aside up to the 1997 season. However the Jordan's design was already done - such solution has allowed to execute the new requirements easily. And Anderson decided not to rework all anew, especially there was no big difference in the behavior of the car with low and high nose.

Much more essential the twice increasement of the quantity of the air intakes.

Peugeot A12 engine

"We have designed them for more effective circulation of air through water and oil radiators" - said Anderson.

One more relevant distinctive feature of 1996 car is an amplifier of a rudder control. "It always has been a hard work to control the Formula 1 car" - speaks Gary - "And now, after numerous changes in technical regulations, the driver's work became even more difficult".

Well, that's all new in the new Jordan's car. "The most important that we have attempted to design the car which one would become less sensitive to changes of track conditions and at the same time more sensitively responded to the setup changes" - speaks Anderson.

  (c) AutoMotoSport magazine, translated by F1AD