Sunday March 25th, 2000

by Mary Milliken

Eddie Jordan was a relieved man on Sunday after fourth and fifth place finishes in the Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix eased doubts about the reliability of his cars.

"There had been a lot of concern about our reliability and today proved that we did indeed make a big step at Silverstone in testing last week," said the Irish team owner, celebrating his team's first points of the season.

German Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Italian Jarno Trulli both failed to finish in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne two weeks ago with mechanical problems.

That caused alarm for a team that took third place in the 1999 constructors championship, their best result ever, and had hoped to start the season by giving the dominant Ferrari and McLaren teams a run for their money.

But on Sunday, Frentzen finished fourth after starting seventh and nearly nipped Benetton's third-placed Giancarlo Fisichella with a one-stop strategy.

Trulli moved up from 12th on the grid to fifth as he ran a two-stop strategy and lightened his fuel load.

"We knew Fisichella would do a one-stop strategy, but just couldn't beat him today," said Frentzen, who started his Formula One career in Brazil in 1994 and was a surprise third-place finisher here one year ago.

Frentzen, in his second year at Jordan, said the team still has work to do to make the cars faster and tighten the reliability to ensure the team stays up with the front of the grid.

"It is as if we started the season in Brazil rather than in Melbourne, so we are bit behind in our rhythm," Frentzen said. "But we are a very strong team with a good atmosphere, I get along well with Jarno and everything is fine so far."

Trulli, who moved to Jordan this year from Prost, said he was pleasantly surprised with Sunday's result after what he called a "dreadful qualifying".

Trulli heads to Silverstone for more testing this week ahead of the next race at his home circuit of Imola.

Frentzen's arrival at Silverstone will depend on the birth of his first child.