Jordan good for Frentzen

Thursday morning in Vienna, three days before the Austrian Grand Prix, and HeinzHarald Frentzen is making a public appearance in the heart of the venerable old city.

Introduced by the MC, Frentzen steps up and, Hollywood Boulevard style, kneels down and plants his hands palms down into a square yard of wet cement. Easing back, he displays both soggy hands for popping flash guns and smiles a slow, sideways grin.

On Vienna's Strasse der Sieger, the street of winners, Frentzen has just joined the club.

A year ago it would have been almost unthinkable. That lop-sided smile, which has become a trademark at Jordan, was entirely absent, the confident glow of satisfaction he now wears like a protective robe was in tattered rags and he was coming to the end of a nightmare two years at Williams which had seen his stock plummet from bright young thing to fading ember.

He was damaged goods, washed up, a wilting hothouse flower who failed to blossom in the notoriously frosty environs of the most successful team in F1 over the last 20 years.

When the 32-year-old German moved to Jordan at the end of last season, in a straight swap for the precocious young Ralf Schumacher, most thought the Irish team were on the wrong end of a bad bargain.

Schumacher, admittedly, was a loose cannon, a driver possessed of much firepower although usually aimed squarely at himself, but the potential was obvious. With his brother as tutor and a decent car under him after half a season of abject misery in the Jordan 198, Ralf was developing rapidly. Frentzen by contrast had already written his own suicide note.

After three impressive years at Sauber which had seen him qualify fifth on his debut in Brazil in 1994 as well as scoring a third-place finish at Monza the following year and a couple of fourths in 1996, Frentzen was snapped up by Frank Williams to partner Jacques Villeneuve. It was the dream move, the drive of a lifetime but it very nearly ended Frenzten's F1 life.

Outraced comprehensively by Villeneuve in the opening three races of the season, Frentzen was quickly labelled a weak-willed failure and even the achievement of his first grand prix win at the next race in Imola failed to silence the critics.

Two years after the start of his descent into his long dark night of the soul, Frentzen could see light in only one way out, a move to the US ChampCar series, a switch he says "he seriously considered". But then came the traditional mid-season game of musical chairs which saw Frentzen move to the Silverstone-based outfit. It was apparently a backward step but with a just a hint of melodrama, the slide in status has brought redemption, rebirth and ultimately triumph with a win at Magny Cours two months ago. A true escape to victory.

But while Frentzen has broken out of a seemingly terminal nosedive, the question remains: what were the chains that bound him at Williams and how have Jordan picked the locks? Ask anyone in the paddock, anyone in Jordan, and you'll hear the same thing over and again: Frentzen is a sensitive soul. He is a confidence driver, one who thrives on support and positive feedback, elements whose absence Frentzen's slide made more than conspicuous at Williams. "He thinks a lot and left to his own devices he could get confused by overcomplicating things but as long as you keep him on the straight and narrow his feedback is excellent," says says Jordan's chief designer Mike Gascoyne.

"Sometimes he'll ask for something, say in aerodynamics that can't be done because his understanding isn't full. We'll then tend to say `no but if you want this effect we could achieve it like this'. Then when that gets delivered it gives him confidence in the people around him. In the past he's perhaps had people who'd say `shut up' and he's lost faith in the team." "If you ask Frentzen about those two debilitating years he will shrug and with studied diffidence diplomatically explain that he "learned a lot at Williams".

Get him talking about Jordan though and he is impossible to contain. "I've found a team where I appreciate working with everybody," he says, leaning into the statement, pushing the point. "I like to work with them and I really enjoy the working relationship. It's quite important for a driver to understand all that's going on with the car and in the team, and with Jordan I have that."

Many have put Frentzen's rehabilitation down to the ever-vaunted "vibe" at Jordan, the rock `n' roll kings of the F1 circus ring, but it's a claim Frentzen dismisses vociferously. "I hate it when people talk about the relaxed atmosphere," he insists. "It's not like Eddie Jordan takes me in his arms and kisses me every morning. There is a different method of working, but I wouldn't say it was relaxed. They are extremely professional. In that it's not a big difference to Williams. There is an atmosphere here which sometimes a pilot can get more out of it or not and that's the secret really.

"It's a combination of hard work, from the team's side and from my side, but we bring it all together. It's not like we have music playing here from six o'clock in the morning and the people are singing all day. This is a combination of hard work from all of us."

It's a combination that is undeniably potent. Of Jordan's 34 points this season, Frentzen has scored 29, a tally which includes second in the season opener in Melbourne, third in Brazil, a couple of fourths and that spectacular win in the rain of Magny Cours. Jordan are now firmly in control of third place in the constructors' championship and Frentzen is on the verge of overtaking the injured Michael Schumacher's third spot in the drivers' championship.

Before Austria, Frentzen, driving a Jordan equipped with a new Honda engine specifically developed with tomorrow's German Grand Prix in mind, outpaced even the mighty McLarens in testing at Monza.

Wrapped in the protective cowl of Jordan's unflagging support, the German firmly believes that his home Grand Prix could prove to be another big day out. "I definitely have the confidence to do it again but every race is different," he says. "But we are very motivated. I think we are in really good shape at the moment, the team and myself, and we are capable of doing it in Germany. The car is quick on low downforce and the engine we had in Monza was great. The combination of engine and car works well, it's pretty fast."

Adding further spice to the mix is the absence of Michael Schumacher. With the lead Ferrari driver recovering from his leg injuries in Switzerland and replacement Mika Salo driving himself in as number two to Eddie Irvine, Frentzen has the chance to claim fourth spot on the grid as his own and perhaps push a pressured Eddie Irvine into mistakes.

"I could see that we have a better chance to be in the top four in qualifying," he says cautiously. "I think it's impossible for even a superstar to join a team and be right away quick, I mean Mika Salo. He's quick, but he has to learn how to set up the car.

"It takes a little bit of time to get there. With just one race you can't expect him to do the same job as Michael. It could be that we will gain a place in qualifying. It's possible but we'll see.

"As for Eddie, I think it's just down to him now. He has the responsibility on the weekends to set up the car. He doesn't have any Michael Schumacher any more. Down to Eddie really to look at his way of life, his easy way of life. He has to see if he can change his rhythm and transform it into motivation and also seriousness, to be serious enough to really go for it."

"I don't know whether we can do anything to put pressure on him. Eddie's quite good under pressure, I don't think he has any problems with that. The only job he has to carry now is that he has to make decisions himself, he doesn't have Michael Schumacher alongside him to tell him how to set up the car, or to show him the direction of the team. It's up to Eddie now to be responsible."

Hockenheim has been good to Jordan in the past. Last year Jordan's fightback, begun by Ralf Schumacher at Silverstone, was strengthened by Damon Hill's fourth place at the German circuit. The year before Giancarlo Fisichella was within a whisker of giving Jordan their maiden win before a puncture robbed him of the chance of victory. This year the combination of Frentzen racing at home, a car tailored for Hockenheim's heavy power requirements could give the team another victory.

Frentzen, though, once a victim of paralysis through self-analysis and taught to walk and then sprint again through the team efforts of Jordan, continues to play the team card. "As long as we get a win I don't really mind where it is, if it's Hockenheim or Zeltweg or even Japan," he says. "I guess Hockenheim would be nice, really nice, but it's more important for us to use the circumstances that are presented to us. Hockenheim would be extremely nice but any win puts us closer to third place in the championship. That's the goal we have. The only goal."