Progress in Australia

Making Progress
By Phil Giles
March 9 2003

Jordan's Australian Grand Prix ended just four laps from the finish when Giancarlo Fisichella retired his EJ13 after a strong performance over the previous 54 laps.  Both EJ13's retired from the Grand Prix, however their styles of exit were totally different.

Ralph Firman lept up two places in the opening laps and was running as high as 8th place when the steering problems that the car has been plagued with all weekend, caused him to loose the car and hit the wall at turn 5 on lap 6.  Rubens Barrichello hit the wall at the same place earlier in the race and there was a suggestion of oil on the track.

Ralph explained,  “I was not pushing one hundred percent when the accident happened.  I was well within myself but then suddenly had major oversteer, lost the car and hit the barrier.  Rubens went off there and I understand there was a possibility of some oil on the track but I honestly don’t know.  It was going well before then, I was cautious over the first few laps and this is an unfortunate outcome.  The team did a very good job to make the right call on tyre choice, so it’s naturally very disappointing not to finish.”

Giancarlo fared better but his EJ13 suffered damage when it was hit by debris from Ralph's accident.  Fisi ran as high as fourth place but as the race progressed, he lost time during his final pit stop and eventually retired with a gearbox problem.

“Well, lots of things happened in the race.  First of all I lost three or four positions at Turn 6 on lap 1 when I lost the car a little under braking.  Then when Ralph had his accident bits of debris hit my car smashing off the wing mirror and damaging my rear wing.  After that I was running at a good pace but we had the problem on the pit stop with the fuel cover and then at the end of the race the car had some gear problem.”

Overall, the team are happy with the progress made over the weekend and feel that it bodes well for the rest of the season.

Gary Anderson said: “Obviously it was a race marked by adverse conditions at the start but everyone suffered them and I believe that we did a decent job.  Our fuel strategy in qualifying was correct and we made the right call to use dry tyres.  I am quite happy although we were not going to score a point today as Giancarlo was running 9th after having the drama with the fuel hatch.  Then we had the gear shift problem, but I’d rather have that when we weren’t going to score!”