MOTOR RACING/Formula One: Justin Hynes finds that the omens for Eddie Jordan's team this year are not encouraging

This afternoon at Brussels airport, Eddie Jordan will spin trouble into triumph, adversity into advantage and, with characteristic artifice, will transform a winter of discontent into a balmy spring of new hopes and golden horizons.

This, from a Jordan launch, is nothing new, you think. We've all been here before.

And it is true. The sense of déjà vu is overwhelming. Whether he's surrounded by the glitter-spattered showiness of Cirque de Soleil in a West End theatre or trying to come across as statesman-like and reasoned at a low-key launch in a tent beside the team's Silverstone factory, the message from Jordan is always the same: big things are expected, a corner has been turned, it's the dawning of a bright new day. Optimism is just Jordan's way.

Except this year the optimism has a more than a ring of hollowness, and the bright new day is looking more and more like a false dawn.

In recent weeks the news surrounding the Irish Formula One team has all been financial and all of it has been negative. First title sponsors Benson & Hedges were pulling out, with the tobacco villains reported to be getting out of Dodge City before the posse that is the 2006 cigarette advertising ban lynches them. Then it was the loss of several sponsors, a clear indication that the repercussions of September 11th and the collapse of Prost Grand Prix were hitting the recently financially impervious world of Jordan.

The continual delay of a launch date for the new EJ12 car seemed to confirm the suspicions.

Those rumours were quickly scotched, however. No, said a spokesperson a fortnight ago, B&H were not abandoning Jordan but, yes, they had reduced their input. Yes, Jordan had lost some other sponsor income, but it was minor and doses of economic slow-down-led cold feet had occurred all along the grid. Oh, and a host of sponsors were coming on board.

And indeed, that is the case. While possibly not in quite the rude financial health of last year or 2000, Jordan is hardly likely to be thrown into debtor's prison.

Deutsche Post, which last year was the team's second largest sponsor, has through its involvement with DHL come to the rescue and has upped its sponsorship stake, with DHL taking over as title sponsors to the rumoured tune of £21 million a season for the next three years.

On Wednesday, Jordan announced it had secured a three- year deal with telecommunica-tions company Damovo.

A further sponsorship deal will be announced this afternoon.

But the financial wrangling that has surrounded the team is the least of their problems. The major concern in the run-up next week's opening grand prix in Melbourne is the quality of the EJ12 itself, or specifically, its Honda engine.

Last year's Honda R001E powerplant, the unit that was supposed to represent the rebirth of Jordan after a poor 2000, turned out to be a damp squib.

The company was forced back to the drawing board and has pursued a more radical design, following in the footsteps of Renault by opting for a wide-angle "vee" which has significant advantages over the current angles employed. Renault, though, suffered problems with its exhaust system last year.

Whether Jordan and Honda-rival BAR are experiencing similar problems in mating the engine to their new chassis is unknown, but in pre-season testing both teams have struggled.

In a group test at Valencia two weeks ago, one of the few at which most of Jordan's major rivals were all present, new drivers Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato could manage only seventh and 11th places respectively, finishing behind BAR's Jacques Villenueve, the Williams of Ralf Schumacher, Juan Pablo Montoya and tester Marc Gene, and both Saubers.

On the surface this does not seem discouraging. Williams are widely expected to challenge for this year's title and Ferrari-powered Sauber were a force to be reckoned with last year.

However, it is the time difference between Fisichella and the front runner that is alarming. The Italian's seventh place was some 3.5 seconds behind Nick Heidfeld's 1.12.509 and was just three-tenths quicker than Heinz Harald Frentzen in the new Arrows, which is powered by last year's Cosworth CR3, the engine that powered the 2001 Jaguar.

The pattern was repeated this week in a smaller test at Silverstone where Fisichella was outpaced by both Frentzen and by Renault's Jarno Trulli. The consolation was that the gap to the German and the Italian was just four-tenths of a second.

That result was, however, achieved using Honda's Melbourne-spec engine, the powerplant that was expected to show what the Japanese company is really about this season.

It is, of course, pre-season testing, an unreliable guide at the best of times, complicated as it is by tyres, fuel loads and the vagaries of each team's programme on the day. Indeed, it was this time last year that Prost were setting alarmingly quick times in testing only for the French team to arrive in Australia and qualify 14th and 20th.

Jordan should fare better, though there is no guarantee.