Pointless after four races and dogged by rumour concerning his team's long-term future, Eddie Jordan yesterday turned from Formula One court jester into executioner as he initiated a sweeping pogrom within his troubled team.

Jordan announced last night he had fired head of engineering Tim Holloway, chief operating officer John Putt and, most unbelievably of all, managing director and close Jordan confidante, Trevor Foster.

Foster guided the team from its fledging forays into Formula One in 1991 through its major successes in 1998 and through the stormy waters of the team's recent misfortunes.

Jordan was unapologetic about the sackings. "Jordan has always been at its best when lean and efficient," he said. "Once you sense complacency creeping in, or costs becoming exorbitant, a prudent business needs to take action."

Holloway, too, has been deemed a failure. With the departure of Gary Anderson in 1999, who has since returned to the fold, and the defection of his replacement, Mike Gascoyne, to Benetton-Renault in 2000, Holloway was promoted from within the Jordan engineering department to oversee the construction of 2001's EJ11.

It was a flawed machine hampered by the late arrival of aerodynamicist Eghbal Hamidy, who was then charged with design of this year's EJ12. Hamidy has fallen out of favour and is waiting contract settlements to be worked out.

The dismissal of Putt is less significant. He was brought into the team in 2000 as chief operating officer with a brief of restructuring the team to make it run more efficiently - a task he has completed.

The sackings come as part of a management restructure begun last November, which will also see the team reduce its work force by a further 40 staff by the end of the year. This will bring the Jordan workforce to about 200, compared with over 600 at Ferrari.

Regardless of the intentions of the restructure, however, the firing of such high profile figures in the fortnight since Honda Racing boss Takeo Fukui said he was extremely dissatisfied with progress and would be reviewing its position in Formula One begin to look significantly like a grand gesture in the grandest tradition.