Although the details remain somewhat sketchy, it's expected that Jordan will cease to exist at the end of the season and the Russian-backed Midland Group will complete a full takeover.

Eddie Jordan has already confirmed that he will be standing down as the team's boss.

The move will deprive F1 of one of its most charismatic and popular participants.

Despite being a youngster in F1 terms, the Jordan team, who only entered the unforgiving world of F1 in 1991, has worked hard to establish itself amongst its historically senior rivals.

Jordan had always been regarded as a stepping-stone outfit, with the likes of Michael and Ralf Schumacher, Eddie Irvine, Johnny Herbert and Rubens Barrichello all driving for the team in their early career.

Nowadays, Jordan are much more of a force to be reckoned with, a team that drivers aspire to.

In their first season in 1991, Jordan did surprisingly well despite initial problems which saw them fail to get a car in the first three races.

The team picked up their first points at the Canadian GP with a fourth and fifth place for de Cesaris and Gachot respectively, going on to finish fifth in that year's Constructors' championship.

Their second season was their worst to date, managing to pick up just one championship point with an under-powered Yamaha engine.

A partnership with the Hart V10 for the next two years and the signing of up-and-coming drivers Eddie Irvine and Rubens Barrichello helped the team to re-establish some degree of form, and in 1994 they returned to the fifth spot they had occupied in 1991.

In 1995 they gained their first podium spots at Montreal with a second and third for Barrichello and Irvine although they could only manage sixth place in the championship.

It was not until 1998 that they managed to move in to the premier league of teams, though not without problems.

Despite a dreadful start to the season, by the time of the British GP, Jordan was a force to be reckoned with.

The hard work was rewarded at Spa when Damon Hill won the team's first GP after 259 attempts.

Their fourth place in the Constructors' Championship indicated they'd finally arrived.

For 1999, Damon Hill was retained, whilst Heinz-Harald Frentzen took over the second car.

Where Hill seemed unmotivated and disinterested, Frentzen was a revelation.

Fine wins at Magny-Cours and Monza saw the German in with a real chance of taking the title. Third place in the Constructors' Championship indicated that the team was still improving.

Jordan approached the 2000 season confident that they were in a position to take on the 'big two', Ferrari and McLaren.

However, other than a strong performance in Brazil, it was a nightmare season for the Silverstone-based outfit.

In 2001, the team took a major step forward by partnering with the Honda Motor Company, and moved up to fifth in the World Championship.

2002 was something of a disaster. With the team rapidly running out of funds Eddie Jordan had to announce redundancies at HQ and declared he would take a more hands-on approach.

Takuma Sato proved to have little input in setting the car up and the tone of the year was set when he collided with team-mate Fisichella in Malaysia after crashing out in Australia. Added to that, the Honda engine unit was dreadfully unreliable.

Eddie Jordan was relieved to pick up a Ford deal for 2003, especially after losing title sponsor Deutschepost.

Yet he could do nothing to arrest Jordan's slide down the grid.

Although Giancarlo Fisichella won the Brazilian GP, the result was essentially a fluke and a rare bright spot for a team now struggling on and off the track.

There was personal embarrassment for Jordan when the team lost a court case against Vodafone in which the judge delivered a devastating verdict against the Irishman, describing him, amongst other things, as an 'unreliable witness'.

The debacle merely highlighted the difficulties the team were enduring, and such was their financial woe that there were fears that they might not even make the grid for the first grand prix of 2005 in Australia on March 6.

Confirmation that part of the team had been sold to the Midland group in January 2005 shelved those fears but the cost will be the end of the Jordan team as we know it from the end of the season.