Monaco GP Jordan Free Practice report

<pre> THE MONACO GRAND PRIX, MONTE CARLO FREE PRACTICE Thursday 24 May 2001

. Jarno Trulli 5th 1:21.048

. Heinz-Harald Frentzen 7th 1:21.505 </pre> A productive practice session for the Benson and Hedges Jordan Honda team, completing a good proportion of the scheduled car set-up programme . The electronic settings on Frentzen's car caused the engine to run at a low idle speed and then cut out as he pulled up to the grid for a practice start, at the end of the first session

Jarno Trulli Car 12
Position: 5th
Time: 1:21.048
Chassis: EJ11 / 05

"It is difficult to find the best set-up for this circuit as the track conditions change so much over the weekend. The car's balance does not feel as good as I'd like at the moment and we still have a lot of work to do, particularly with the tyres. Today, we worked through general car set-up for the race with different settings comparisons. Our race configuration seems pretty competitive, but we will have to look at the data to see what alterations we need to make for Saturday as qualifying is so important at this track."

Heinz-Harald Frentzen Car 11
Position: 7th
Time: 1:21.505
Chassis: EJ11 / 06
T-car Chassis: EJ11 / 02

"I am generally happy with today's result as we had no mechanical problems or incidents. We were also able make good progress and complete a lot of the car set-up work. It's very good that we have the opportunity to carry out practice starts on the grid, although unfortunately at the end of the first session I was unable to do this as the engine cut out because the car's idle settings were too low. Qualifying will be tough here but I'll be pushing hard to be in the top six."

Tim Holloway, Head of Engineering

"It was a productive day's work for the team as we made good progress with the car set-ups. Monaco is a difficult track to drive and it's so important not to make mistakes, so I think both Jarno and Heinz did a very good job today to keep the cars on the track. This circuit is very special compared to others, so cars need a slightly different set-up. We're working through a programme based on our usual Monaco set-up, but still have further work to do. The track will be very different come Saturday so that poses another challenge for the morning practice session, in order to find the optimum qualifying set-up."

-Jordan-