By Phil Giles
October 10 2004

It's been a strange weekend for all involved in Formula One this weekend. For the first time in nearly 20 years, the timetable had been shattered and it was all due to the weather.

Jordan's Japanese Grand Prix started with two very very wet practice sessions.  Typhoon 21 (Ma-Oh) was heading for the circuit, bringing with it torrential rain and winds of over 170mph.  Free practice saw the three Jordan drivers complete just 46 laps between them, however encouraging lap times were put in, in the wet with Timo Glock finishing in 6th and Nick just behind in 7th.

Robert Doornbos, Jordan's Friday test driver ended the session in 16th place.  He said "I think it went great as it was my first time ever driving a Formula One car in the wet and I had to learn the circuit as well. If I compare how to drive F1 in the rain with F3000, the difference is unbelievable. The Bridgestone tyres gave an amazing amount of grip. I really enjoyed it and found the pace right away. I did a good job and I’m looking forward to more laps in Brazil."

Timo was quite happy with his performance over the session. "It didn’t go too badly today given the extremely rainy conditions. It was a bit difficult for me to start with as I don’t know the circuit and it’s hard to learn it in the rain. But after a few laps it was okay; I found a good rhythm in the wet and the car was not feeling too bad. At the end I was quite happy with both sessions although the rain got so heavy we had to stop before the session finished. The car was quite good in these conditions so I hope we have a wet qualifying and race!"

Nick said "It was quite a satisfying day today looking at our positions. Obviously it was very difficult for everybody with these weather conditions and the forecast for tomorrow looks even worse. We did a few outings but stopped before the end because it simply got too wet and we would not have been able to assess the changes correctly."

The conditions didn't improve sufficiently for the circuit to be used on Saturday, although the bad weather predicted just skirted the circuit.  Therefore, the qualifying session was held on Sunday morning.  Jordan's drivers were out early on a still damp track and as such, couldn't take advantage of the conditions as the track dried out.  Nick qualified in 16th position and Timo in 17th.

Most of the teams suffered with a lack of track time this weekend, this accounted for a fairly mixed grid for the race.  Rubens Barrichello made an error at the final chicane which dropped him back to 15th place, however he was still three seconds faster than Nicks qualifying time of 1:41.953.

Nick finally finished the race in 13th place.  He gained a place or two at the start of the race, only to loose time with small electrical and gearbox problems.  Timo felt that the set up of the car didn't help his day, along with more gearbox problems and a minor incident with Kimi Raikonnen. I assume that's the incident that saw the yellow flags come out with Timo on the grass, just at the point where the Suzuka track crosses back on itself.  The team are now looking forward to the last race of the season in Brazil.

Nick commented.  "I got a good start and gained a position or two. For the first part of the race I had quite a loose rear and we made some adjustments at the first pit stop, which certainly helped. I had one or two small electronic issues, maybe something on the gearbox as on one of the pit stops I couldn’t get into neutral. Also at one point suddenly the pit lane speed limiter was on while I was on the circuit and I lost a couple of seconds there. Otherwise, I think in the circumstances, given that we did not have a lot of time to practice here, I’m happy with our starting set-up and what we achieved in the race."

Timo said: "My start and first couple of laps were not too bad but overall it was difficult today. The car set-up was not that good and I had everything: oversteering, understeering, changes in the pit stops didn’t seem to help much and the car didn’t feel easy to drive. I had big problems and couldn’t find a rhythm. Added to that I had gear problems and a crash with Kimi Raikkonen that I didn’t see coming – all in all it was a bad race for me."

James Robinson summed the day up for the team.  "It was a hard race and we had a number of technical problems. We had to limit Timo’s performance because of an engine problem, which was unfortunate, and although Nick had a good hard race, from where we qualified it was tough to make any impression. It was a challenging day for Timo but given his first lap around here in the dry was lap one of the race today, we feel he came through okay. We are all looking forward now to the last race in Brazil."