The EJ11 featured seven forward gears, up from the six of the EJ10, and a notably higher nose that prompted a shark-themed livery. The Honda RA001E V10 engine made Jordan a direct works partner of Honda, placing the team in theoretical parity with BAR and establishing a competitive baseline that generated high expectations for the season. In pre-season testing the car regularly topped the timesheets, leading lead driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen to declare it the best he had ever driven.
The gap between testing pace and race results became a recurring theme. In Australia Frentzen qualified fourth but retired following a collision with Rubens Barrichello's Ferrari, recovering to a promoted fifth after a BAR penalty. Trulli looked set for a podium before hydraulic failure ended his race. A similar pattern — fast qualifying, race retirement — recurred in Malaysia, Brazil, and Imola, where the team's only double-points finish of the season materialised with Trulli fifth and Frentzen sixth.
Austria saw both cars fail to leave the grid, with Trulli's launch-control failure and subsequent black flag for exiting the pit lane under a red light typifying the team's troubled year. At Monaco a proposed front-wing aerodynamic experiment was immediately banned by the FIA on safety grounds during practice; Trulli retired from fifth and Frentzen crashed heavily exiting the tunnel.
Frentzen missed the Canadian Grand Prix after suffering dizziness and headaches following a practice accident, replaced by test driver Ricardo Zonta. With the team frustrated by Frentzen being outqualified by Trulli in nearly every race, Eddie Jordan dismissed Frentzen following the British Grand Prix. Jordan later stated the decision was partly driven by Honda's desire for Japanese driver Takuma Sato to race for the team in 2002.
Jean Alesi replaced Frentzen from the Hungarian Grand Prix onward after the Frenchman's sudden departure from Prost. A major aerodynamic upgrade introduced at that round proved ineffective. Alesi provided steady rather than spectacular contributions — scoring a point for sixth at Spa-Francorchamps amid a chaotic race — but neither he nor Trulli could rescue the team's season.
A notable bright spot came at Indianapolis, where Trulli finished fourth and Alesi completed his 200th Grand Prix start in seventh. Trulli's result was initially cancelled by a technical disqualification, but Jordan won the subsequent appeal and had the points reinstated — a crucial result that lifted the team back above BAR to fifth in the Constructors' standings.
The basic yellow and black colour scheme was retained. Benson & Hedges branding again dominated the car's surfaces, replaced by "Bitten Heroes" at the French, British, and United States Grands Prix. The shark motif on the nose — introduced in 1998 alongside the "Buzzin' Hornets" theme — remained in place. After the September 11 attacks, the American flag was displayed on the engine covers at the Italian and United States Grands Prix.
The EJ11 was the car on which the full-works Honda relationship was supposed to launch Jordan into contention with Ferrari and McLaren. Instead it delivered fifth in the Constructors' Championship and 19 points. Trulli left the team after the season. Alesi retired from racing. Frentzen, ironically, took over Alesi's vacated seat at Prost for the remainder of the year. The Honda partnership continued into 2002 with the EJ12 but the early promise of the works deal never translated into championship-winning results for Jordan.