31/08/2005
NEWS STORY
Jordan Grand Prix goes to the Italian GP straight from a three-day test at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza with all four drivers – Narain Karthikeyan, Tiago Monteiro, Nicolas Kiesa and Nicky Pastorelli – contributing to the programme. The team carried out almost 1400km of mileage with the new EJ15B on one of the oldest and fastest tracks, which they all knew from previous experience. Following the toss of a coin in Istanbul by Alex Shnaider, Co-founder and Chairman of the Midland Group Board, Tiago Monteiro won the toss and will drive the new car at Monza this weekend.
Narain Karthikeyan: "The test with the EJ15B at Monza last week went reasonably well. I think we have closed the gap with the bigger teams and this is very encouraging. However, I cannot quantify it much more until we all sit together and discuss it. It is a pity I lost the toss and cannot drive the new car at Monza but I will try to do my best with what I have. I like Monza a lot and I hope to do well."
Tiago Monteiro: "The Monza test last week went very well, even better than we expected. We spent three days testing the new car without any problems, which shows that it was very reliable at the moment and this is a very positive improvement. I am looking forward to racing it at Monza as I was lucky to win the toss. Monza is a very tricky and high speed track. It will be very important to have a good car balance in the braking zones because of the low downforce. It will not be the easiest track to race the new car but we will deal with this and I hope we will have a good race."
Nicolas Kiesa: "The test we had at Monza last week was pretty good and we added many kilometres to the new car. While I was there, I did not encounter any problem with it and I think all the engineers were quite happy as we gathered a lot of data. During my day of testing, I did long runs to see how consistent the car could be. My lap times were very encouraging. The car was really good for the racing distance. But I also have to say that for qualifying, when I looked at Narain’s laps on Friday, the times also seemed promising. I hope we will have a good result at the Italian GP because the Toyota engine seems to be very strong and I think we have also tested some very good different types of Bridgestone tyres. Another positive thing is that we have found quite a good car set-up and we will not have to spend too much time on setting up the car anymore and could focus more on the tyre choice."
Adrian Burgess Sporting Director: "We had a good test at Monza last week, adding more mileage to the EJ15B. The cooling problems we experienced before has now been fixed and we will introduce the new car this weekend at the Italian Grand Prix. For the race at Monza, we will be running with low downforce settings, which require different techniques, set-ups and aero package exclusively for this race. The fact that the drivers have all been driving here a week before the race means during the weekend we can concentrate on fine-tuning the car rather than for the drivers to spend time on acclimatising to the high speed track."