"It will give me immense pleasure to stuff it up Benetton and show Gascoyne, who left us before he had really got his feet under the table, he has backed the wrong team," Jordan was quoted as saying in the Sun newspaper on Tuesday. "We are the ones going places."

Jordan did not appear to be too bitter about Gascoyne's departure at the time but clearly he is disappointed that his technical director did not share his optimism for the team’s future. Making his announcement to leave last summer, Gascoyne said that he was to join Benetton/Renault from 2002, but with a rumoured sweetner of $200,000 from Benetton, Jordan released him from his contract early. The contract was supposed to run until the end of 2001 but in October 2000 after a period of 'gardening leave' he was released to join the French car giant.

If preseason testing can be used as a gauge, and it often can't, Jordan should easily have the legs on a very disappointing Benetton. The final preseason test session saw Heinz-Harald set the fastest time of 2001 at Silverstone while Button was around 4 seconds slower - a lifetime in Formula 1, even with completely different fuel loads and set-ups.

Gascoyne's replacement Eghbal Hamidy formally joined the Jordan team from Arrows on Monday 26th and Eddie is understandably excited about Gascoyne’s replacement, citing him as one of the most underestimated talents in Formula One.