European GP Jordan Friday notes

Jenson Button was quickest in today’s free practice posting a time of 1.19.808 in front of Alexander Wurz who put in the second quickest time of the day. The weather in Nürburgring was cold and damp during the morning.

The Benson and Hedges Jordan team did not focus on quick lap times but worked on race set up during the free practice sessions today. Trulli was seventh and Frentzen fifteenth. The overall feeling is good and the team feel confident and are looking competitive on this track.

Frentzen who got pole position last year will be looking to emulate this performance tomorrow in the qualifying session. “We worked to optimise the balance and did our homework to find a good race set up. On new tyres, at the start of the session, the car felt good, although I had a little understeer. The track was a little wet to start with but dried out later which was probably good practice since it might well be like that on Sunday,” commented Frentzen.

Jarno Trulli who is familiar with the Nürburgring from his F3 days said, “I feel we are more competitive here than in Barcelona. We did a good job today as we solved a problem which I had with understeer in the morning. It was unusual to have this problem as I never had understeer on my EJ10 before, but we made all the right set up changes and by the afternoon session we had found a good balance. I was in the top five for most of the session, but then we made a change on the car which was not right and I did not get out again to post a better time when the track was drying out. I think we should have a good weekend here.”

The T Car will be set up for Heinz-Harald Frentzen for tomorrow’s qualifying.