Yellow Peril

Outside the Jordan hospitality garden in the Albert Paddock two women are in deep conversation. "Who's that?" asks one, raising an appreciative eyebrow in the direction of the yellow-suited figure who's just emerged from the team's garage.

"That's Trulli," the other replies, squinting over the top of her designer shades to get a better view of the driver.

"Who's he?"

"He joined them this year. Instead of Damon Hill," says the girl in the sunglasses.

"Right. He's pretty damn cute, isn't he?" says the first as they prowl closer.

A year ago in the very same paddock, albeit further down this little strip of road where position denotes primacy, Jarno Trulli might have got the same admiring glances from female fans. Chances are though that most would have left none the wiser as to the identity of the then Prost driver. Change the race suit from blue to yellow though and suddenly Trulli is a bit of a star, someone to watch out for. A bit of a contender.

Such is the power now wielded by Jordan in Formula One. For so long the bravest of the also-rans, seemingly cemented into the role of cut-price mediocrity, the Irish team has been radically transformed in the last two seasons.

Last year's best ever finish of third has given them a choice spot in the pit lane, gazing up longingly but not in awe of close neighbours McLaren and Ferrari, and sees them jealously guarding that hard-won territory from big-budget novices Jaguar and a Williams team in the middle of a rebuild in BMW's teutonically perfect image. That new found lustre has also attracted new lucre. A massive deal with German company Deutsche Post that will give the team the financial clout to compete technically with the big two.

These are heady days for Jordan. Gone are the days when the team would field entries and manically celebrate a run into the points. Tomorrow, they will enter their first grand prix of the 2000 season. For the first time, they will go out expecting to win. For the first time, the expectation has a basis in reality.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who singlehandedly took the team to third place in the constructors' championship as Damon Hill faded into a ghostly shadow of what he had been when earning Jordan's first victory in 1998, is marked down as the man mostly likely to deliver. He has won before. Twice last year, in France and Italy. At Nurburgring he earned the team its first pole position since the Belgian Grand Prix of 1994. For a time, after his Monza win, and up until electrical failure cost him a comfortable lead in the European Grand Prix, he was being touted as a possible champion. Now, when Frentzen arrives in the paddock heads turn.

But while the expectation of a victory is now a fixture at Jordan and the expectation is centred most fervently on the laconic German, there is one who believes a Jordan win could come from another source. The true believer is Jarno Trulli. And he feels victory can be his.

"I feel I have a very great opportunity to win races this year," said the 25-year-old Italian.

"Now that I have a competitive car, I can get the results I always anticipated. I feel that I can compete for the whole championship, and not just one or two races."

The view is shared by Trulli's new boss. Eddie Jordan, who has already described the former Prost driver as his "jewel in the crown" and believes the Italian will duplicate the transformation made by Frentzen last year, from talented driver going nowhere to superstar in the making.

Trulli's record in the Australian Grand Prix is, however, far from laudatory. He failed to finish in his last two outings here, but now feels that he has a chance to make a real impression at the Albert Park circuit.

"I was running third last year before we had a refuelling problem," he said. "But I always have a good performance here, if I can finish. . ."

Reliability is not likely to be a factor in either Trulli or Frentzen's weekend. Despite gearbox niggles, the new EJ10 has proved it can be a real threat to the top two and, with Trulli and Frentzen, the team appears to have its best ever chance of eroding the quality gap that exists between McLaren and Ferrari and the chasing pack.

"This year's car is a lot quicker than last year's. We feel that it is a big step forward. We are closer to the Ferraris and McLarens," he said before adding a hasty caveat. "But we think that everybody has improved a lot and everybody else will be close to the top teams as well."

Despite the noises of quite confidence that have been emanating from the Jordan camp since the EJ10 was first used in anger at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya two days after its public debut in London in January, getting either Trulli or Frentzen to top step of the podium with any regularity will prove more difficult than last year.

While few would doubt that Frentzen showed remarkable coolness taking the chequered flag at Magny Cours, the 10 points were gift-wrapped by a radically redrawn grid, thanks to precarious qualifying conditions, and the appalling weather of race day which saw the German's rival fall by the wayside.

Monza, too, was unlikely to have been Frentzen's had Mika Hakkinen not suffered a rare bout of carelessness as his thumb hovered over the gear paddles. Indeed, throughout the season, Jordan were aided by a series of technical glitches in both McLarens and also by the protracted absence of Michael Schumacher, an absence which effectively removed a certain frontrunner from the equation for five races.

Yesterday at a practice session for tomorrow's race in Melbourne, Schumacher looked like he might be gift-wrapping another big chance for Jordan. The two-time world champion lost control of his Ferrari at a right-handed corner and slid across the gravel before hitting the barrier, having a couple of his own tyres ripped off in the process. Schumacher, however, was able to step away from the cockpit and hitch a lift on the back of a motorcycle to the Ferrari garage and watched the last moments of the session from the pit-wall.

The return of Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello's arrival at Ferrari, coupled with a Ferrari and a McLaren that have so far proved more than capable of meeting race distances, both Jordan drivers are likely to find any ascent to the podium more problematic than last season.

Both will also have to be aware of the threat from behind. Jordan have been firmly in the sights of every team from Jaguar to BAR to Benetton. Yellow has become a highly visible and attainable target.

Jaguar would appear to be the major threat to Jordan's hold on the third garage in the pit and Eddie Irvine, in particular, could be stinging the hornets' tails by Easter and the British Grand Prix.

Eddie Jordan, though, is refusing to acknowledge the challenge of the re-badged Stewart team and has set his sights firmly on breaking into the true top flight.

In the wake of the team's finest year, tough talk has been the defining facet of Jordan in recent weeks, but, starting tomorrow, reliving the high times of champagne and silverware may turn out to be the beginning of a difficult period of withdrawal symptoms.