Firman boosted by Silverstone performance

Go For It
By Phil Giles
March 2 2003

Ralph Firman has arrived in Australia and is brimming with confidence for the first race of the season. Ralph finished top in testing at Silverstone on Wednesday and this has given him a complete lift for the Grand Prix weekend.

"I'm really looking forward to the start of the season now," said Ralph. "Last week I had two-and-a-half days testing in the dry and two-and-a-half in the wet. The first few days were getting used to the car and doing practice race distances, and I also had to do some engine mapping work for Cosworth too. I'm happy with how I've progressed so far. On the Friday, every time I went out I was lapping 0.7 seconds quicker than the time before and if things go like that in Australia then I'll have a good race.”

Ralph has never driven at the Melbourne Circuit before and has a lot of learning to do.  Thankfully, Jordan have opted to take the Friday Morning testing option.  Ralph and the team have made the most of the off season testing, however during the next eight months, the team will have only 10 full testing days.  The two hours on the Friday will be used not only for car setup but getting Ralph used to the circuit layouts.

“Melbourne isn't a street circuit in the classic sense because it hasn't got barriers right on the side of the track like Macau or Monaco,” he added. “I've only seen it on the television but the track has got a lot of grass surrounding it, so it isn't as daunting as Macau. All the way through testing we've been very encouraged by the reliability of the car and we think we've got a very good chance of getting some excellent results in the first three races."