By Phil Giles
July 4 2004

Jordan's French Grand Prix was largely forgettable but thankfully reliable although the team could not manage to finish higher than 16th. On a technically demanding circuit, both Nick and Giorgio brought the EJ14 home safe and sound.

The race was not without incident for the Jordan duo.  Giorgio was investigated by the stewards and suffered a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane.  Nick also managed to cause some consternation when he arrived a lap early for his second pit stop.

ITV-F1's commentators Martin Brundle and James Allen commented on a paddock rumour suggesting the sale of all or a part of the team to a Middle Eastern conglomerate.  Jordan commented that "rumours are rumours" so that's clear then.  Further rumour abounds surrounding Jordan's engine supply for 2005.  Commenting on RTE, Eddie was quick to praise the job that Renault have done this year, leading to some of the fans speculating that the Ford Cosworth engine may rev in the back of a Jordan for the last time at this years Brazilian Grand Prix.  Whatever happens, it was good to see that the engine is at last reliable if somewhat under powered.

Nick said : “It was not a good race for us today but it’s easier to handle as there was no chance for points anyway with most of the cars finishing. Unfortunately I had a poorer start than my teammate again and I have tried to analyse that over the last weeks. I overtook him after the first pit stop and then later there was a misunderstanding with my engineer so I went through the pit lane once too often and I was behind Giorgio again then passed him again. Overall the balance of the car has been better at most other races so far. With new tyres the rears were good for a few laps and then dropped off and I had a lot of graining on the front. Added to that there was a lot of lapping and blue flags. A difficult race.”

“It was good that we finished the race as it’s quite a long time since I did that. I had a really good start then I felt some problems with the car especially with braking. Finishing reliably is the positive thing to take from here and then let’s get going to the next race.”  commented Giorgio.

James Robinson is happy to forget this weekends ressult, looking forward to next weeks British Grand Prix at Silverstone.  “This has been a weekend we would like to pass over and move on from. In terms of reliability it was clearly good to get two cars to the end, but performance-wise, from where we started on the grid we couldn’t make much impression and with only two cars dropping out we couldn’t move forward. We’re looking ahead to Silverstone, our home race, where we will be in a few days’ time and hopefully we will get a better result there.”

The EJ14 makes an appearance at the Regent Street parade on Tuesday where it will be piloted through the London Streets by Nigel Mansell.  Jordan Fans are reminded that for the third year running, the Jordan Factory grounds will be open for visits during the BGP weekend.