The Jordan Grand Prix team has suffered a heavy pre-season blow with the announcement chief designer Mark Smith is to move to Benetton.

Smith's departure, just short of two weeks before Jordan's 2001 car (the EJ11) is formally unveiled at Silverstone, is the latest in a series of defections that have rocked the Irish team in the run-up to the new season, which begins in Melbourne on March 4th.

First to go, midway through last season, was technical director Mike Gascoyne, lured away by re-appointed Benetton boss Flavio Briatore on the promise of a lucrative and potentially championship-contesting post with a squad that had just been bought out by Renault.

The aftershocks of Gascoyne's departure were quickly felt within Jordan, with race engineer Dino Toso opting to follow Gascoyne to Benetton at the close of the 2000 season. Toso had worked as Damon Hill's race engineer in 1999 and last year for Jarno Trulli.

The Italian driver faces into another season of uncertainty as he attempts to establish a working relationship with yet another engineer, Gabriele Delli-Colli, brought to Jordan from Sauber. With Toso and Gascoyne poached by Briatore, the departure of Smith the same way must rankle with Eddie Jordan, who will only too clearly recall past dealings with the Benetton boss. In 1991 the two squabbled over Michael Schumacher and in 1998 fought a rancorous legal battle over Giancarlo Fisichella's future. On each occasion Jordan has lost to the Italian, though large cash settlements were believed to have assuaged the Irishman's anger.

A team spokesman admitted it is "highly likely" a successor will be appointed from within Jordan's current ranks, as happened in the case of Gascoyne. Such measures have been seen as stopgaps as the team awaits the arrival of aero-dynamicist Eghbal Hamidy from Arrows.

The Iranian-born designer has, however, 18 months left on his contract with Tom Walkinshaw's team, and the Arrows boss has made it clear in the past he will ensure Hamidy sees out contract.