2004 German GP

Travelling through the small village of Hockenheim you could be forgiven for thinking that you've taken a wrong turn on the way to the Hockenheimring, before seeing the circuit's main entrance which almost looks out of place. Nestled deep in the forest, the circuit was until recently one of the fastest on the F1 calendar with incredibly long straights and speeds well over 200mph. For 2002 the straights were replaced with a more conventional circuit layout that includes at least one corner, the hairpin, to facilitate overtaking. The circuit's grandstands, when full of klaxon-wielding spectators, provide an awesome noise and sight.

Jordan Ford drivers Giorgio Pantano and Nick Heidfeld contended with car handling and tyre problems in today’s German Grand Prix, Pantano losing time to two separate tyre-related issues at the beginning and end of the race while Heidfeld retired with a handling problem on race lap 43. In spite of the setbacks Pantano was relatively satisfied with the Jordan Ford EJ14 package and was able to deliver consistent and increasingly quick lap times throughout most of the race, even setting his fastest time on the final lap (1:16.058). Bridgestone and are Jordan are investigating the tyre issues experienced.

Giorgio Pantano and Nick Heidfeld qualified 17th and 18th for the German Grand Prix. Pantano missed most of morning free practice after he hit a bollard early in the first session which damaged the front wing and sent him careering into the tyre barriers. With the car badly damaged and insufficient time for the car to be repaired before practice ended, Pantano and his engineers were forced to make set-up choices based on existing data.

Nick Heidfeld commented on Free Practice in Germany "After a reasonable start to the first session with some good adjustments to the car, unfortunately the changes we made for the second session didn’t improve it. We tried to come back on some of those things towards the end of the afternoon and I did a fairly long run to get some information for the tyres. I’m sure that we can progress in time for tomorrow."

The German Grand Prix is home race for Jordan Ford drivers Nick Heidfeld and Timo Glock and in addition to Heidfeld’s best F1 finish at this circuit - a points-scoring 6th place, the team’s former German driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen was on the podium in Hockenheim with 3rd place in 1999. Eddie Jordan is also proud to have introduced both Schumacher brothers to Formula One, providing their first ever F1 drives: Spa ‘91 for Michael and Melbourne ‘97 for Ralf.

Nick Heidfeld said, "I am looking forward to Hockenheim as it is one of my home races, following Silverstone which was almost like a home Grand Prix. The atmosphere at Hockenheim is probably the best in the world especially for the spectators, being in the stadium section. You feel that as a driver too and I hope there will be a lot of supporters for the German drivers, including me. At Silverstone we had a positive test and tried something new on the mechanical side which found us a good margin of lap time so hopefully that will help us in Hockenheim.”

Jordan’s Message from Bahrain at this Grand Prix will be the emblem of the charity 46664. This was Nelson Mandela’s prison number during his 18 years of incarceration in Robben Island prison and upon his release and subsequent election as the President of South Africa, Mandela gave the number to rock-star Dave Stewart of Eurythmics to initiate a series of music recordings and concerts for charitable fundraising for the fight of AIDS in South Africa.