There have been several reasons for the sudden drop off, but three stand out.

1. The introduction of launch control and traction control has been highly embarrasing for the Silverstone-based team. On several occasions an EJ11 has left on the grid, and even last weekend at the Nurburgring, Heinz-Harald's traction control suddenly broke, suddenly increasing the revs and sending him into a spin.

2. The bugbear from 2000, the gearbox, is starting to have a worryingly high failure rate, Jarno's giving up the ghost last weekend while in a points scoring position.

3. Maybe most worringly of all is the situation that arose in Canada. Everyone knows that the Montreal circuit is very hard on brakes - team go to great lengths to ensure they have allowed for this in their setup. Jordan know this - Frentzen fractured his leg due to a brakes failure in 1999.
What happens to the two EJ11s in Canada this year?
Zonta finishes 7th, unable to push for 6th because his brakes are worn to the point where they will hardly stop the car at all. Trulli retires, while 4th, because his brakes fail. If this had happened to Frank Williams or Ron Dennis you can bet blood would have been spilt.

Eddie Jordan and Trevor Foster have come out to publically say they will work hard to change the current situation, but Eddie doesn't seem to believe he has an unreliable car, which is a bit strange with 1 finish out of 8.
"There are no excuses for our recent poor performance," says Eddie Jordan. "We are extremely frustrated with the course of events over the past few races. Having said this, it would be easy to build up a false picture, and it is important to stand back and look at all the facts. I think some people will wrongly jump to the conclusion that we have an unreliable car and are suffering similar problems to last year. This would be inaccurate for a variety of reasons."