Jarno praying for a bit more speed ?

“I made a good start and got by Rubens Barrichello,” said Trulli. “Then Ralf Schumacher, who was ahead of us, made a mistake at the first corner. I got caught behind him and lost the place to Barrichello. It was a tough race because our tyre degradation pretty high and I lost a place during the first pit stop, which put me from fifth to sixth.

“I was pushing hard trying to stay close to Villeneuve, which was pretty difficult, and then I had trouble with the gearbox and the brakes. This is a bit of a worry because the problem has arisen before, so we need to find out why. But generally, this was a good race. I was back to fifth and I knew that Coulthard was catching me, so I had to keep a fast pace. Then, on the last lap, the leader dropped out and me all moved up one more place, which made me fourth. I think is the best result Jordan has had on this track so, all in all, it's not a bad result at the end of a hard race.”

Heinz-Harald had even more reliability problems. As the red lights went out and the field of 22 cars sped away from the grid, the German was left stranded on the grid. “I had a problem right at the start,” said Frentzen. “We don't know at this stage exactly why it happened ­it may have been related to the launch control - but it meant I was last away. I got past a couple of cars on the first lap and was trying hard to catch up. On lap 6, I had an incident with Pedro de la Rosa while challenging for 16th place. I don't want to apportion blame: I would call this a 'racing incident'. As far as I recall, I had the racing line, was alongside and my rear wheel touched his front wheel. That's all I can say. Either way, it was not my day but I'm very pleased for Jarno and the team winning another three points.”

“A great shame that Heinz went out so early,” said Eddie Jordan. “But, once again, a strong drive from Jarno which means we have scored points in all five races this season. That said, we need to raise our game. We've got the reliability, which is an important objective, but our pace is not good enough if we are to get close to the front runners. But, at the end a day like this, the lesson is that you need to be running at the finish before you can even think about anything else. The fact that the leading contenders, Ferrari, McLaren and Williams, each had just one car running at the end demonstrates that.”