The Benson and Hedges Jordan team travels to Germany for round eleven of the Formula One World Championship at Hockenheim with a new aerodynamics package for the EJ10. Commenting on the new package, which was successfully tested at Silverstone this week, Jordan’s Managing Director Trevor Foster said, “The purpose of testing this week was to prepare the EJ10-B for Hockenheim. We had previously not taken this chassis to Austria as tests on the new aerodynamics were not conclusive, however now all parts and spares are available and we will be using the specification at Hockenheim. The new chassis has shown to perform better than the standard EJ10 and we will be looking for a better performance this time round”.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen showed good form last year, qualifying on the front row of the grid and finishing the race in a third place. Commenting on his ’99 performance Frentzen said, “I was really happy to finish on the podium and win points for the first time at Hockenheim. I have always wanted to do well on my home turf and it was great to finish on the podium especially in front of my home crowd. “

The German driver added, “Hockenheim is a distinguished track in comparison to other F1 circuits on the calendar. In my opinion, there is no comparison to the other tracks; (theoretically you have two race circuits) The infield a stadium section of the track is so different that in theory you are almost racing on two different circuits. In terms of distance, the infield section is very short but on the other hand it is very effective compared to the longer part of the track which makes Hockenheim so challenging for setting up the car. A good comparison needs to be found for the infield and our target is to find the best compromise and to qualify at the front of the grid. Overtaking is very difficult and is usually only possible after the first corner and on the long straight so a good qualifying performance is vital”.

Jarno on Hockenheim

Having put the disappointments of the first corner incident which ended his race in Austria behind him, Jarno Trulli is looking forward to racing on German soil. "Jordan has always done well at Hockenheim and the I have a lot of experience of the track," he said during the pre-race test at Silverstone, "so I would expect us to be competitive there, especially with our new aeropackage. I hope to be consistently in the top six over the weekend. I raced at Hockenheim six times in Formula 3 and won six times, and it is also the track where I scored my first Formula One points (with Prost in 1997), so all this adds up to make me feel very confident for our weekend there.

"The German crowds still recognise me from the days I drove in the German F 3 Championship and I still receive a good reception. I would say that together with Monza, Hockenheim has one of the best atmospheres of any Grand Prix."

Lap of Hockenheim with Heinz-Harald Frentzen

The first corner is taken at roughly 200 Km/h and the car gets very nervous when you approach the exit of the first corner. You have to use every single centimetre of the track especially on the exit to be able to carry the speed along into the straight. The first straight is the fastest reaching a maximum 350

Km/h in sixth gear. At this speed you don’t really comprehend how fast you are travelling and as a driver you want more power if anything. The chicane is very hard on the breaks, you break one hundred meters before the apex and then shift down into second gear for the right then left hander and accelerate immediately after for the second part of the long straight.

You reach about 330 km/h coming into the Ostkurve and the breaking is a bit tougher here as it is a very tight first gear corner. The chicane has got a lot of camber change and it is more difficult than it looks because most of the time you are running over the kerbs and the car gets very difficult to control. You have to make sure you do not make a mistake and lift off as this spoils your momentum down into the straight. It is not as long as the first or second straight and you reach nearly 330 km/h before you break for the fastest of the three chicanes.

Next you approach a right hander which is very similar to the first corner and is taken at about 180km/h and increases to about 200 km/h on the apex. You can see the spectators here and the tendency is to run wide to use every inch of the track available especially when you are running with a low downforce set up. Braking is difficult into the hare-pin you almost intend to lock the wheels up because there is so much camber in the corner the intense camber change lifts the inside wheel up making the car difficult to control.

When entering the infield area of the circuit you need to take care as it is a very challenging combination that is extremely slippery especially on a low down force set up. The risk of sliding in the infield is very high and immediately you can loose half a second. The last corner is pretty fast and you take it at about 260 and exit at about 270 km/h entering the start finish line to start another lap of Hockenheim.

Jordan Grand Prix