Talking at Brands Hatch at the weekend, where his company, Carlin Motorsports, was engineering the Portuguese, Lebanese and Japanese A1 teams, Trevor Carlin shed a little light on the problems at Jordan - soon to be Midland F1 - where he spent five months as Sporting Director.

"If you don't have money and you don't have the will to succeed it's impossible to win, because F1 is an extremely competitive world," said Carlin.

"My last team's only concern was to save money..."

There is much speculation over the future of Midland F1, with many claiming that owner Alex Shnaider has finally realised exactly what is involved in running an F1 team, and not merely from the financial point of view.

Although he is rumoured to have paid Eddie Jordan around £10m for the team, it's believed that there were unpaid bills and the running costs for 2005, which amounted to a further £20m. With little in the way of sponsorship it's rumoured that Shnaider will have to (personally) stump up a further £30m in 2006.