Three years ago the Australian Grand Prix was uprooted from its traditional home of Adelaide and transplanted to the verdant shores of a lake in Melbourne's Albert Park, a move which sparked the ire not only of Adelaide's business community, who had basked in the multi-million dollar glow the Formula One circus brought, but also of Melbourne's fervent environmentalists who bridled at the thought of all those filthy fumes and noisy cars.
It would, then, have been interesting to know what the now poorer citizens of Adelaide thought when Heinz Harald Frentzen turned up on their doorstep on Monday morning.
Had the FIA undergone a sudden change of heart and decided to reinstate their cash cow or had the Jordan driver come over all misty-eyed and decided to visit the spiritual home of the Australian GP. The answer was neither, although mist did play a part but not in a longing for the good old days. Frentzen, along with Minardi driver Marc Gene, were the victims of Melbourne's capricious weather and their respective flights had been diverted to Adelaide when the the city which promises four seasons in one day offered a fair impression of winter and lathered the airport in fog.
By the time the German got back to Melbourne he had re-oriented himself not only with the correct location of the Grand Prix but also with the finer points of Jordan's own brand optimism.
"Eddie Jordan has promised me a couple of wins this season," he said during a public appearance in which he swapped Formula One's high-tech power for the lowly controls of one of Melbourne's clattering trams.
"The new engine and gearbox developments have been running quite well in testing and the Jordan this year is at least one second a lap quicker than last year. But, of course not everyone is showing their maximum in testing so we'll have to wait until Sunday to find out."
Frentzen will have mixed memories of the Albert Park circuit. It is a circuit he obviously enjoys and has mastered, but one which has bitten back on occasion. Two years ago in his first season in a hugely dominant Williams he easily led the race until problems with his brake discs sent him spinning out.
Last year he fared better, but in an inferior Williams FW20 and finished a creditable third behind the rampant McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard. This year he is hoping that the new Jordan will be up with McLaren and Ferrari from the start of the season.
"McLaren and Ferrari have not run at maximum pace in testing," he said, "but the lap times between them and the other teams are coming closer together. In the Jordan I hope we'll be right on their tails from the first race."
One driver who won't be anywhere near the pace of McLaren or Ferrari is the Finn Mika Salo, who has been replaced in the Arrows by Japan's Toranosuke Takagi. Tagi will now drive alongside former Jordan test driver Pedro del a Rosa. Announcing the switch, Arrows' Tom Walkinshaw said that Takagi had "time and again impressed with his mature performance on the track". Takagi drove for the now defunct Tyrrell team last year and showed signs of being quick, despite being in an uncompetitive car. Salo, however, was a proven quantity who had previously jousted with Hakkinen in the British F3000 championship.
The split, however, appears to have been Salo's decision. According to a statement released by Arrows, the team `agreed to release him from the remainder of his contract, as requested by Mika Salo'.
Salo may now join the Honda team, due to enter Formula One in 2000, as a test driver, either alongside or instead of Dutchman Jos Verstappen.
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