Formula 1

Frentzen to focus on this year

Heinz Harald Frentzen wants to forget the disappointments of last year and focus on a new season with a new team. The German was abruptly sacked from Jordan mid-season in 2001 and spent the remainder of the races with Prost Grand Prix, who went into ...

Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM

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Heinz Harald Frentzen wants to forget the disappointments of last year and focus on a new season with a new team. The German was abruptly sacked from Jordan mid-season in 2001 and spent the remainder of the races with Prost Grand Prix, who went into liquidation at the end of last year and were subsequently decalred bankrupt. After talks with Arrows over the winter he was signed as driver alongside Enrique Bernoldi for 2002 and was always confident he would be in a race seat for this season.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen under the rain.

Photo by Mark Gledhill.

"I never thought I would be out, to be honest," Frentzen said. "I was planning to do the season this year and I was planning to do it with Arrows, even though they had come to an arrangement very late. I don't want to think about last year. Last year was in the past, I just want to focus on this year."

Arrows have been without a win in the team's years in F1 but Frentzen believes that even if a GP victory is still out of the question, they should have better performance this season. "At the moment it's pretty difficult to make any estimation at all, we don't have enough experience to make a judgment," he said. "We have made some progress, but we are still behind a little bit. We have had some reliability problems over the winter testing...but we will try to finish the race and have a good result. Where we are at the moment, it's difficult to say. I think the team is very much motivated, we have, basically, a good bunch of people there and it's time to put it all together."

Winter testing was limited but despite a rear wing failure that gave him high speed crash, the German thinks the A23 has potential even if it's a little early to really judge the performance.

"The car has a little bit of understeer here, a little bit of oversteer there. It's hard to make an overall judgment about it," Frentzen explained. "We are trying to learn and understand the car...there is still good potential to come and it's up to us really to get the best out of it. It's an on-going development. The wind tunnel is running day and night."

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