Jordan unable to shine in the wet.

By Phil Giles
August 28 2004

Jordan drivers Nick Heidfeld and Giorgio Pantano will line up in 16th and 19th places on the grid for tomorrows Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps.

Both drivers suffered with a slippery and wet Belgian track at the start of the second qualifying session. The Jordan's aerodynamic capabilities didn't help either  driver who seemed to be hacking at the steering.  Nick suffered in the first corner, running wide at the La Source hairpin.  However their final qualifying positions were as per for the rest of the year.  Giorgio was helped by an over cautious Ricardo Zonta but still failed to post a faster time than either Gianmaria Bruni or Zsolt Baumgartner in the Minardi's.

The wet conditions meant that neither driver was able to set the car as they would like and that the tyres used for the session had to be full wet weather tyre.

“I’m not satisfied." said Nick.  "Relatively speaking, the car looked really strong this morning and we were not too far off the top ten and even then I knew that there was still room to improve further. Then in pre-qualifying and especially in qualifying, I lost grip and had a very loose rear end. But that happens: obviously, it’s difficult for everyone to judge the conditions with so little track time in free practice. But still we have the race ahead of us and I’m looking forward to that.”

“I’m a little bit surprised because I don’t know what changed between pre-qualifying and qualifying!" commented Giorgio.  "It’s so strange to lose 4 seconds from the first to the second session. The car was different in qualifying, it was much more slippery. I think there is something wrong, whether it’s the car or me I don’t know but we need to understand what happened.”

James Robinson said: “In race trim in the morning we ran solidly and the Bridgestone tyres worked well. This afternoon we had a good weather forecast that said it would rain later in the session so we were hopeful of getting the best of the track conditions within the first 30 minutes of qualifying. Unfortunately an early shower forced us to stay with the extreme wets and we could not maximise our position.”