Arrows question poaching ethics

Arrows team principal Tom Walkinshaw yesterday questioned the ethics of teams poaching employees from rival squads even as Jordan's signing of the British team's chief designer Eghbal Hamidy begins to look more and more likely.

"It is a counter productive practice," said Walkinshaw. "If people insist on having a long-term contract when they're negotiating to join a team then they should have the integrity to honour the terms of the agreements they sign. The teams should also respect that. But it doesn't happen. I'm not so sure that you shouldn't have the same thing for the technical people as you have for the drivers where the contracts are lodged and if you want to make an approach you first get it cleared by a contract recognition board.

"It's getting quite silly in Formula One where you have contracts for a couple of years and six months in you've got teams offering inducements to people to potentially break their contracts, that's just not correct." Hamidy, whose skills as an aerodynamicist have largely been responsible for the upturn in Arrows' fortunes this year, has, according to paddock rumour, been targeted by Jordan as an ideal replacement for the departing Mike Gascoyne, who was lured from Jordan to Benetton earlier this year.

Until now Arrows have maintained a tight-lipped silence on Jordan's move for their designer but yesterday Walkinshaw admitted that there was little he could do to keep the Iranian-born technician at the team.

"I don't know if he has signed a deal with Jordan," said the Arrows boss before insisting that Hamidy was only midway through his contract with Arrows. "He has a contract with us until the end of next year and he's confirmed to us that he will honour it." Jordan have consistently denied attempting to lure Hamidy, who has previously worked with Williams and Stewart. Meanwhile on the Monza circuit yesterday, Ferrari delivered a bold reply to McLaren's apparent mechanical dominance in recent weeks with Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher topping the free practice timesheets, with Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard having to settle for berths behind Jordan's Jarno Trulli, the Italian determined to prove his worth to his home fans in a car he calls the "first competitive machine I have driven."

"Everything worked out well today and we managed to achieve what we wanted. We replicated the balance we had during last week's test and got even more grip today so the lap times were very good." Last year's winner Heinz Harald Frentzen finished the day 14th, the German concentrating on race setups and running with heavy fuel loads and confessed he was looking forward to this afternoon's qualifying session to see if he could repeat his performance of last year when he qualified second behind Hakkinen.