Fisi's Honda engine gives up.

The heat of Interlagos didn't help any Bridgestone runner so both Jordan drivers had to adopt a two stop strategy, but even still the team should be much more competitive than they were.
The signs were on the wall on Saturday with a disappointing 14th and 19th in Qualifying.
In the race itself it was all about Ferrari and Williams with Sato finishing over two laps down on the Schumacher brothers giving a good indication of the amount of work in front of the Jordan team, but at least he finished.

Takuma ran a two-stop strategy, overtaking one-stoppers Oliver Panis, Felipe Massa and the two Jaguars. He was up to 11th on his first stop, 10th on his second stop and finally finished ninth, admittedly helped by retirements. His finish did prove the excellent work which the Jordan team, particularly in the team's headquarters, have done to plug reliability issues, they now have to concentrate, with their Honda colleagues, on improving the speed of the EJ12. The next big step forward from Honda is not due until the Canadian race in June, but much work can be done in the meantime.

Taku was smiling broadly afterwards. "I really enjoyed the race and the two stop strategy worked well.” he said. "I was sandwiched a little when Montoya had his accident on lap 1, but then I pushed hard and I enjoyed a battle with Jaguar’s Eddie Irvine & Pedro De La Rosa and BAR’s Olivier Panis. I feel I coped physically very well with the race, although my neck muscles will feel a lot better after a massage! It was very exciting, and I enjoyed the racing, I am now looking forward to beginning the races in Europe."

Giancarlo Fisichella's run of ill-luck continued when he retired after seven laps with a suspected blown engine. But the Italian was already trailing the field after pitting on lap one to replace the front wing after it was damaged by debris from Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams after it had collided with Michael Schumacher's Ferrari.
"Today was not a good race for me,” admitted Giancarlo. “I started off with a problem with launch control so I had to start manually which lost me my grid position by a few places. On the first lap, some carbon fibre debris from the accident with Juan Pablo Montoya and Michael Schumacher damaged my front wing and I had to stop to change it. Finally I was forced to retire when the engine stopped. I haven’t had a great start to the season, let’s hope my luck changes for my home race in Imola." Shuhei Nakamoto, the Race and Test Team Manager at Honda Racing Development admitted the race was not much fun. "We obviously had a really tough day today and I'm sorry that our engine stopped Giancarlo from finishing the race," he explained. "Jacques and Takuma pushed hard all day and for Jacques to go out right at the end was tough on him. Olivier was the only Honda-powered driver to be one-stopping today, and it was a shame he didn't get a chance to see how that strategy would've worked out. We must continue to push to raise our game, starting at the test in Valencia this week and then the race in San Marino."