The Benson and Hedges Jordan Mugen-Honda team is celebrating its second Grand Prix victory after a fantastic win by Heinz-Harald Frentzen in the French Grand Prix. Only two weeks after injuring himself in Canada, the German driver drove a superb race and, helped by the team's race strategy which meant he only needed one pit stop, claimed his first win for Jordan and third podium of the 99 season The 32-year-old German was still limping following his heavy crash in Canada a fortnight ago after which he was detained overnight in hospital and only passed a medical a few days ago. But Frentzen shrugged off the injury as the team's decision to switch to a one-stop strategy paid off after he took the lead with just seven laps to go.

The Race report

The Grid.
Barrichello is on pole alongside Alesi, the second row is Panis and Coulthard with Frentzen and M Schumacher on third. Hakkinen is down in 14th with Irvine 17th and Hill 18th.

The Race.
The race begins in dry, overcast conditions with dark clouds threatening in the distance.

Lap 1. Rubens Barrichello takes the lead with Jean Alesi following. David Coulthard passes Olivier Panis immediately. Panis is then passed by Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Michael Schumacher. The Ferrari driver tries to overtake Frentzen but Heinz-Harald holds off the challenge. Hakkinen races from 14th to 9th position.
Lap 2. Coulthard passes Alesi to take second place and begins to chase Barrichello.
Lap 4. Johnny Herbert disappears with gearbox trouble.
Lap 6. Coulthard takes the lead at Adelaide Corner and sets a string of fastest laps to build up a lead of 7.6 seconds. Hakkinen is now up to 6th and still charging. Diniz retires.
Lap 9. Suddenly Coulthard�s McLaren falters and he pulls off with a suspected gearbox failure. Barrichello takes the lead again with a four second advantage over Alesi. Hakkinen overtakes Michael Schumacher to move to 4th and starts after Heinz-Harald.
Lap 15. Mika overtakes Heinz-Harald at the Adelaide hairpin and chases Alesi.
Lap 19. Hakkinen catches Alesi and passes him, again, at the Adelaide hairpin. Rain clouds start to move in. Mike Gasgoyne makes the inspired decision to send a team member and mobile phone three miles in the direction of the rain clouds. He is able to give the vital information regarding timing and amount of rain that leads to the pit strategy change.
Lap 21. The downpour commences as the leaders begin lap 21. The second half of the field pits immediately as they are just approaching the pit entrance. The leaders are all past the pits so have to do another lap.
Lap 22. All top runners have now pitted, Barrichello emerges ahead of Hakkinen, Alesi, Frentzen, Michael Schumacher and Panis. Frentzen's pit strategy is changed at the last minute, on his in lap. He later notes that it was a bit of a surprise.
"Well, it's not a decision that I took at that moment. I went into the pits because it had suddenly started to rain quite heavily and everyone was trying to make it into the pits as safely as possible. But then I noticed that the guys doing the refuelling were taking a lot of time, and when I went out again I knew immediately that the car felt very heavy.
I was wondering how I was going to be able to keep the car on the road with all the aquaplaning. I was suffering quite a lot and I noticed that the guys around me must have had less fuel, because initially they were able to pull away from me quite quickly. But luckily then the Safety Car was brought out, and there was time for me to have some conversations with the pits by radio.
We talked about strategy and why I was so heavy on fuel. It was still pretty tight and I even had to save fuel at one stage, to be sure of making it all the way to the end [without a second stop]. But we have good radio communications and everything worked out well."
Damon Hill goes gets a puncture while leaving the pits so has to do a whole lap on three wheels. He pits again but is two laps down when he rejoins the race.
Lap 24. The weather is atrocious. One of the acknowledged master of the wet weather, Jean Alesi, spins into retirement.
Lap 25. The Race Director finally decides to send out the Safety Car. It picks up the leaders but while the rest of the field catches up with the queue Jacques Villeneuve, Alexander Wurz and Marc Gene all aquaplane off and retire.
Lap 26..Zanardi retires.
Lap 31. Damon�s Mugen-Honda starts to misfires so he retires, ending another miserable weekend.
Lap 36. The conditions are still treacherous but the race restarts


Schumacher's Ferrari is there in the background somewhere!


Lap 38. Hakkinen tries to take the lead at his favourite place, the Adelaide hairpin, but touches the curb and spins. He drops to seventh place. Frentzen moves up to second but almost immediately is passed by Michael Schumacher who sets his sights on Barrichello and the lead.
Lap 42. The conditions are still bad enough for Fisichella to spin out.
Lap 44. After a great battle, during which they exchange the lead in the Adelaide Hairpin, Schumacher gets ahead of Barrichello and quickly builds up a cushion. Over the next few laps Barrichello finds himself at the head of a queue of cars with Frentzen, Panis, Ralf Schumacher and Eddie Irvine filling third to sixth places.
Lap 50. Schumacher�s seven second lead suddenly disappears due to intermittent gear selection problems, sometimes he can only find 1st and 2nd. He manages to stay ahead of Barrichello and tries to build a new lead
Lap 54. Still struggling, Michael comes into the pits for fuel and a change of steering wheel to try to cure his electronic problem, Barrichello moves back into the lead. Also pitting for fuel are Ralf Schumacher and Irvine. Hakkinen starts another charge forcing past the two Prosts and back into third.
Lap 57. Hakkinen takes Frentzen in a wheel-to-wheel passing maneuver approaching the Adelaide hairpin and then chases after Barrichello.
Lap 60. Mika passes the Stewart driver for the lead. Both Prosts pit and drop out of the top six. Frentzen runs into trouble with his gear selection just as he was lapping de la Rosa. "It was very close, and I pulled in very tight [to the inside of the corner]. Then I found I didn't have any gears, and I thought my gearbox had broken. I didn't know what had happened and I had to start looking for gears. That was an adrenalin moment ..."
He loses about 10 seconds to Barrichello.
Lap 65. Barrichello and Hakkinen pit so Frentzen takes the lead for the first time in the race. Word comes from the pit that Frentzen will definetly not be stopping. The risk taken by putting in the heavy fuel load on Lap 22 will pay off as long as there is not gearbox recurrences. With seven laps to go Frentzen only has a 2.3 second lead over Hakkinen so the race is far from over.
Lap 72. Heinz-Harald Frentzen has extended his lead to eleven seconds and takes his second victory in F1 in what Eddie Jordan described as a "phenomenal achievement".

Hakkinen finishes second while Barrichello is third. Michael Schumacher struggles with his tyres in the closing laps and is passed three laps from home by his brother Ralf, who gives Williams a good fourth place from 16th on the grid. Michael Schumacher and Irvine give Ferrari fifth and sixth, while the two Prosts finish seventh and eighth, Trulli beating Panis to the line. The only other finisher on the same lap as the leaders is BAR's Ricardo Zonta.

The victory came thanks to a combination of a perfect race strategy and brilliant driving in atrocious conditions. Having had the decision made for him that he was out on the circuit for the rest of the race, Frentzen looked after his car excellently. He had to keep a very heavy car on the road and look adter his tyres at the same time. The team of engineers headed by Managing Director Trevor Foster, Chief Designer Mike Gascoyne, and Frentzen's race engineer Sam Michael and Hill's engineer Dino Toso have become one of the most effective groups in the pit lane and the French Grand Prix win was as much due to their efforts in developing the J199 and ensuring that, as in this case, they have the best race strategy.



Post Race Comments

HEINZ-HARALD FRENTZEN � WINNER. Chassis No. 5
"I am delighted and very happy with the job my team did today. It will take time to sink in, but I am going to celebrate tonight - I am not sure how yet!
The strategy worked very well and the team was able to keep me informed about the fuel and the weather. My pit stop took a long time and I was getting nervous until I realised the strategy had changed so that we could have a long second stint. The car was in good shape in all stages of the race and things worked out perfectly. This victory was nicer than my one in Imola, perhaps because no one expected it. It was really tough race, and we won it. After losing those six points in Canada we have now struck back."

DAMON HILL � DNF, Electrical problem. Chassis No. 4
"It has not been a very good weekend for me. Qualifying was a bit of a shock yesterday. In the race things were going well to begin with. I made the pit stop at the right time but, as I was going down the pit lane De La Rosa hit my left rear tyre and gave me a puncture so I had to come back into the pits. Then, when the safety car came out, I had an electrical problem with the engine and there was no way I could carry on. I had a lot of bad luck, but I did not perform as well as I would have liked to all weekend."

EDDIE JORDAN
"Heinz-Harald Frentzen has produced one of the best turnarounds in Formula One, not only in the way he has driven for us since the beginning of the season, but most particularly because he had to come back from a serious accident in Montreal two weeks ago which put him in hospital. The strategy was perfect and, with Heinz's good driving, won us the race. Heinz drove within himself, didn't waste fuel or time on battling, and made the most of the opportunity. He drove immaculately."
"I said he (Frentzen) would be remarkable at the beginning of the season but I am not sure I believed he would be as remarkable as this.
"It would have been more difficult to make the decision on the fuel if we had not won before so from that point of view it is a matter of growing up. It was a very dangerous call to fill the fuel right to the brim - the car was going to be slower for sure in the beginning and then all the fuel didn't go in so we probably had half a litre of fuel left at the end. It was well-planned and well-executed and the driver was fantastic."





Race Result

1.Heinz-Harald FrentzenJordan Mugen-Honda1hour 58min 24.343sec
2.Mika HakkinenMcLaren Mercedes+ 11.092sec
3.Rubens BarrichelloStewart Ford+ 43.432sec
4.Ralf SchumacherWilliams-Supertec+ +45.475sec
5.Michael SchumacherFerrari+ 47.881sec
6.Eddie IrvineFerrari+48.901sec
7.Jarno TrulliProst Peugeot+57.771sec
8. Olivier Panis Prost Peugeot +58.531sec
9. Ricardo Zonta BAR Supertec +1:28.764sec
10. Luca Badoer Minardi Ford +1 lap
11. Tora Takagi Arrows +1 lap
12. Pedro de la Rosa Arrows +1 lap

Lap 42 Giancarlo Fisichella Benetton Playlife Spin
Lap 31 Damon Hill Jordan Mugan-Honda Engine
Lap 26. Alessandro Zanardi Williams Supertec Spin
Lap 25. Jacques Villeneuve BAR Supertec Spin
Lap 25. Alexander Wurz Benetton Playlife Retirement
Lap 25. Marc Gene Minardi Ford Spin
Lap 24. Jean Alesi Sauber Petronas Spin
Lap 9. David Coulthard McLaren Mercedes Gearbox
Lap 6. Pedro Diniz Sauber Petronas Retirement
Lap 4. Johnny Herbert Stewart Ford Retirement

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