The Jordan Grand Prix team made a perfect debut season in 1991, powered by the Ford V8 engine the team was successful. For 1992 Eddie Jordan managed to make a deal with Yamaha. Yamaha would provide Jordan their newest V12 engine the Yamaha OX99. After the season ended the Jordan 191Y interim car appeared on the track.
While Jordan’s debut in the Formula One was an big success, ending fifth in the constructors championship with 13 points isn’t bad at all, the team was in financial needs. Eventually the team would chance their lovely green colour scheme for the colours of main sponsor Sasol. However, not before the Jordan 191Y appeared on the track. The Yamaha test hack.
The Jordan 191Y was the interim car which Jordan made available to test Yamaha’s new V12 engine the Yamaha V12 OX99 3.5l. The chassis was originally the Jordan 191-07, which was, used a couple of races, by my sources.
Stefano Modena was the lucky one that did the testing with the Jordan 191Y fitted with the Yamaha V12 engine. Modena would drive for the Jordan team in 1992, so obviously he would test the car. While some sources say others drivers tested as well, sadly I was not able to find any info on that.
The Jordan 191Y interim car has been tested at least once at Silverstone and at least once at Catalunya.
I wasn’t able to find any test dates or any test data of the car. Thanks to @F1JordanGP on twitter some of the data is back. 16th December 1991, 24 laps at Silverstone.
It is surprisingly that the team managed to fit the Yamaha V12 engine in the car, as originally the Jordan 191 was designed for the Judd-V8 engine which would have been replaced with the Ford V8 engine before the start of the 1991 season. They also kept the radiators of the V8 engine.
The combination Jordan and Yamaha was far from successful. Stefano Modena, with a bit of luck, managed to score one point for the team during the last Grand Prix of the year. Eventually the Jordan 192 fitted with the Yamaha OX99 V12 3.5L engine was the worse combination the team ever drove with on the tracks.
In 1993 the V10 engines of Brian Hart powered Jordan Grand Prix. The 193 scored 3 points.
In 1994 the 194 powered by the Hart V10 would score 28 points. Which is one of the team’s best results in their existence.
The Jordan 191Y interim car was not the first car Yamaha used to test and develop their engines. A year before Yamaha used the Brabham BT58Y as their test hack for the Yamaha OX88 V12.
