Heinz-Harald Frentzen's Formula One career has been full of ups and downs. After making an amazing debut with Sauber, he endured a couple of torrid years at Williams. He returned to the top with Jordan, only to be sacked halfway through the 2001 season. Now at the Arrows team, the German is again trying to prove his worth. Will Gray talked with Frentzen in Canada about his life in motor racing, Exclusive for Atlas F1

Heinz-Harald Frentzen has seen some ups and downs in his eight-season Grand Prix career, but he is currently enjoying a rejuvenation period. After tough time in the last year, he seems to be settling back into the everyday life of Formula One. His cool happy-go-lucky persona beginning to return. And more importantly, so is his determination.

Once a Grand Prix winner with Williams and twice with Jordan, Frentzen is now plying his trade with Arrows, faced with a very different task of racing for crucial points in a team which is rumoured to be in financial trouble. But Frentzen remains unfazed and ready to talk.

I find him sitting in the orange liveried Arrows section of the paddock at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, escaping the blazing sunshine that is bathing Montreal on Saturday afternoon. Relaxed, he sits back in his chair as he completes an interrogation from the German press and prepares for his next meeting with a select few Britons.

Coming off the back of some stunning performances in the last few races, Frentzen seems to be one of the form men, perhaps only beaten in terms of points-scoring success considering relative car performance by David Coulthard of McLaren-Mercedes, Giancarlo Fisichella of Jordan, and, of course, his old adversary Michael Schumacher.

One point for sixth place in Austria and another for finishing in the same position in Monte Carlo have not only boosted the team's morale after a difficult season last year, but also strengthened their position in the financial stakes by moving them up the Constructors' Championship table.

His qualifying performances are also worth note. In the four races before the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, he has started from 13th, 10th, 11th and 12th - not bad, considering many thought Arrows would just be there to make up the numbers this season.

In fact, Frentzen had out-qualified his teammate Enrique Bernoldi in every race, sometimes by as many as seven grid positions - and the young Brazilian is no longer seen as the push-over pay driver, he is an established driver who is earning his place through more than money alone.

But on this day, things have not gone to plan. The tables are empty in the Arrows paddock area. Some team members are in the garage, desperately working to improve the car. Others are walking guests around the paddock, trying to explain that Arrows are still on a resurgence despite their poor Canadian form.

The weekend has been tough so far, and they do not expect it to improve. Frentzen has qualified way below his expected best, but he remains composed; for him, it seems, this setback is just one of those days which are few and far between at the moment. So he has every reason to smile as the first, rather ironic, question is fired: "are you driving better now than ever?"

Frentzen laughs. "Yeah, not today!"

Q: Well, your performances have been pretty good recently

Frentzen: I have to say I try to be clever and use all the experience I have earned in my time in Formula One. That's my trick. My reflexes are still working well and I think I am just using my experience now for being so long in Formula One.

Q: So you have got better with age?

Frentzen: Yeah, I think so, yeah. I am sharp, I am sparked, I like my job and I try to help Arrows as much as I try to help myself as well to be further up the grid.

The one-time Mercedes protege, who raced alongside Schumacher as the pair grew up in Germany, is now 35. His old long floppy hair has been removed and replaced with a neatly cropped coiffeur that reveals a slightly receding hairline and a thinning top. The recently acquired look says 'experienced' but, Frentzen insists, definitely not 'past it'.

Two years older than compatriot Michael Schumacher, he is now the third most senior driver on the Grand Prix grid, one and a half years younger than veteran Ulsterman Eddie Irvine, and half a year younger than Finn Mika Salo.

Experience-wise, he is fourth in the table behind the Ferrari pair of Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello as well as Irvine. But his Grand Prix success record cannot compare with any of them, particularly his German rival.

Out of the car, he and Schumacher also have a very deep past personal history. Schumacher wooed a certain girl called Corinna away from his rival and made her his wife. But Frentzen still respects his rival.

"I have the character that I feel it is nice for him that he has such a good time with Ferrari at the moment," he says, when asked if it hurts that Schumacher has become the man to fly Germany's flag in Formula One, particularly as the Grand Prix circus prepares for its first visit of the season to his homeland at the Nurburgring next week.

Q: When there are hundreds of Schumacher flags and maybe one Nick Heidfeld flag and one Heinz-Harald Frentzen flag, does that bother you?

Frentzen: No. It's nice that some people have the courage. You have to think it is pretty difficult to be a Nick Heidfeld or Heinz-Harald Frentzen fan surrounded by the other ones.

Q: Do you feel a little less pressure because everything is focussed on the Schumachers, or do you get your fair pressure and attention?

Frentzen: No. Really it is not a big issue for me. But they do. You are right, the main focus, of course, is Michael winning the Championship and the crowd looking at the front. But it would be a nice return for the fans if I could drive into the points at the Nurburgring.

Q: Racing for points when Michael is racing for wins must be tough. Are you still enjoying Formula One as much as you ever have?

Frentzen: Yes, I do so. Ever so!

Q: Do you get the same motivation trying to help a team that has been struggling to move up the grid as you used to get battling for victories with Jordan and Williams?

Frentzen: Yes. I have my targets here and I try to help the team. That is my motivation - to be as quick as possible and get the best out of the weekend. That's my fun.

That fun, it appears, is not so prevalent when being interviewed, as Frentzen edges in his seat hoping the questions will soon end. He motions to Arrows press officer Lindsay Morle for some water. "Michael went home ages ago," he jokes, pointing out that his rival has an easy life when it comes to interviews.

Tough. We want more answers, so he is staying put. He sits back again, water in hand, and fields more questions. His answers are becoming short and sharp, especially when he is probed on the timing details of his arrival at Arrows.

It came as a surprise to already contracted Dutch driver Jos Verstappen that he would be ousted by Frentzen in February of this year, but there was little shock from most external observers. Team boss Tom Walkinshaw has been known to chop drivers at the drop of a hat in the past, so when a talent like Frentzen came on the market after Prost Grand Prix went into liquidation, what obstacle was a simple piece of signed paper?

None, apparently, although Verstappen remains in the midst of a court battle claiming loss of earnings with conflicting reports of success and failure. Dutch radio claimed Verstappen had won it, but immediately his manager, Huub Rothengaater, denied that.

There are also counter claims from Walkinshaw, believed to be bidding for a settlement over lost sponsors because of Verstappen's comment that teammate Bernoldi was "the worst teammate" he had ever had. Messy? Yes. But add that to Frentzen's current battle against Jordan for dragging his name through the mud when he was sacked just before last year's German Grand Prix, and it is understandable why he is cagey on the subject.

Q: There were rumours for months and months about you joining Arrows. Why did it take so long?

Frentzen: Simply we needed a little bit more time to discuss the points of the contract, simply that.

Q: So you only really knew you were coming here in February?

Frentzen: Well we were just talking about it, sure. It did take longer, the agreement, than we would have liked, but sometimes things need time to sort.

Q: Tom's tough to deal with?

Frentzen bursts out laughing, and while the question was a rhetorical one, he does strangely enough struggle to find the right English words on this topic, as well as that of his final days at Jordan. It is something he rarely talks about.

Q: Are you still a bit sad about the way things happened at the end with Jordan?

Frentzen: Well, not upset, but it was a very difficult situation after that with the damage of image and everything. That was my biggest concern. It is not nice, you know, when things have been said over myself in the press and things like that. It is not very nice in that stage of my career. So I took the opportunity with Prost and said, okay, I start again, do my job here as good as possible and then we will see.

Q: Were you surprised that Eddie could do that to you?

Frentzen: Not really. Well, I was surprised because, um... I am just trying to find my path back because I don't want to speak too much about Jordan.

He pauses, struggling for words and realising he is being taken down a path he does not want to travel right now. His legal proceedings against the team mean he has been told not to speak about his time there. Finally he finds the words he wants to use and cuts the interrogation short with a firm but friendly "forget about it."

And so the conversation moves on to Alain Prost, and Frentzen's brief stint with the former World Champion's team. Just three weeks after being sacked by Jordan, Frentzen had found himself back in the cockpit at the wheel of a Prost AP04 in Hungary. It was the beginning of a five-race period that went a long way to saving his career.

His arrival was, in effect, a direct but enforced swap with now-retired Frenchman Jean Alesi, who took Frentzen's place in the Jordan. The German's poor performances were believed to be the reason he was forced out of the Silverstone-based team. That, and an apparently heated argument with team boss Eddie Jordan in the paddock at the British Grand Prix, which turned out to be his final race for the team.

Frentzen missed the Canadian Grand Prix last year when he crashed and suffered a recurrence of the concussion he had felt after a heavy crash at Monaco. That, it soon appeared, was the beginning of the end, and after Ricardo Zonta made his second substitute appearance of the season in Germany as Frentzen took stock of things in Spain with his mother, the switch was made.

Alesi raced the wheels off the Jordan and raised them to previously unachieved levels. Meanwhile, however, Frentzen himself worked wonders at Prost and began to show what he could really do. His performances in Hungary and Belgium were sensational, and in those first two races with the French team, a senior engineer is said to have claimed, he made more impact in developing the car than Alesi had in two years.

Frentzen does not know how to react when he is told of the comment, and the praise of the Prost team in general. "Yeah?!" was his simple response as he remained slightly taken aback by the revelation that his former Prost engineers thought so much of him. Lost for words, his mind continued clocking the high commendation. Fair enough, Alesi was never best known as a technical operator, rather a pure racer, but still, more in two races than in two seasons? That was quite some praise. So, does he have a technical mind?

Frentzen: Well, I do like the technical side, I do spend time with people working on the car and for me that is normal. I don't know how other people drive or work, and I don't speak about other drivers, but for me it is normal. It's nice that the team said that.

Q: Have you been able to bring useful knowledge to Arrows?

Frentzen: Well yes, of course I have never closed my eyes when we did testing and experiments in the other teams. The driver sees and knows what is going on when he does testing and try things, so you take the experience with you.

Q: What has impressed you the most about the team so far?

Frentzen: I think there is a lot of facility in there and a lot of experience and they have the potential inside the team. The potential is there and the infrastructure has impressed me. There is everything you can have.

Q: How does it compare to what you saw at Jordan and Prost last year?

Frentzen: I do not like to make comparisons with Jordan at the moment, and also it is difficult to compare it with Prost. I would say that there is a lot of technical facility and background behind the Arrows team.

Q: So there is a bit more depth?

Frentzen: Well there is everything you can think about. They are making all the parts of the car in house and not all the teams can do that.

Q: How good is the car?

Frentzen: I feel that there is the potential in the car to be more up to the front. The circumstances right now is not that easy because we do struggle at the moment more in qualifying than we do in the race. We have quite a very good race car but we haven't got yet the qualifying car I want to have.

That much is clear from the timesheet sitting on the table in front of him - his 19th position is indicative of a car that does not qualify very well! But, like he has already said, this is simply a little glitch in an otherwise impressive run of success.

Arrows have been up front before, most notably in recent times when World Champion Damon Hill joined in 1997, the year after his title victory, and almost won the Hungarian Grand Prix before being forced down to second with final lap car dramas.

Whether those heights are achievable again in the near future is debatable, considering the current route Formula One is taking towards dominance of heavily financed manufacturer backed teams. Still, Frentzen can dream. But how much can he dream of achieving?

Frentzen: I think we can make the car more competitive and if we make the car more competitive we can be more consistent in the points.

Q: So consistency is the crucial thing at the moment?

Frentzen: Yep. We still have tracks which treat us better than others. Certainly here in Canada is not the one we are in favour of at the moment for some reason. We didn't expect that, but we also had a bit of bad luck in qualifying. But I do think we have good chances this year to be more consistent in the points.

Q: Would it be sufficiently satisfying for you just to move Arrows up the grid?

Frentzen: Of course. If I do help Arrows I help myself as well. We are trying our best but it would be nice to get some better results. It should be achievable.

Q: And how have you done that so far? What is the biggest improvement you have seen at Arrows since you joined?

Frentzen: Well, because of the time-scale we couldn't do as much testing as we wanted for Melbourne and that basically hampered us a little bit because we had to sort out some reliability, we had a new engine. We had to see first and we had to have some testing and, of course, the package was late. We lost a little bit of time at the beginning of the season but the car has become very strong in the race, very reliable, and I have to say it is quite amazing that in this short time we have achieved that.

Quite amazing, also, considering the apparent financial problems the team is in. According to sources, budgets are not ideal at the team whose major backer, telecommunication giant Orange, is rumoured to be looking elsewhere for better publicity.

But in truth, what better value for money is there than Arrows? Frentzen, now sitting more comfortably as we discuss the positive aspects of his current life experiences, is still a big name star. He is a Grand Prix winner, a fast driver, and a truly likeable person. That much is clear to see as a twinkle in his eye appears and the smile broadens during discussions over his team's improvements.

Perhaps telling, however, the smile remains as conversation turns to money, or the alleged lack of it, at Arrows. Frentzen is most definitely not driving for free, as he is rumoured to have done at Prost during his successful bid to get his career back on track, but had admitted negotiations with Walkinshaw were tough.

The canny team owner is certainly one to get his money's worth, and Frentzen is giving him just that at the moment. His results are just what Walkinshaw needs to attract more sponsors and, if rumours of a possible Orange departure are true, to hold onto existing ones.

More success means more exposure, and more exposure means better value for money to the sponsors. So, in a round-about way, Frentzen has a major part to play in the finances of the team - not that he admits it.

Frentzen: Well, I am not involved in this. This is the responsibility of Tom. On my side I do not have the review...you cannot ask me that question basically.

Q: But does it affect you at all? Have you noticed any cutbacks in developments?

Frentzen: I don't feel anything here. I don't see any effects if that is true. People are trying hard to back development work and bring in new development stuff to the circuit, so we have got new stuff here. We have re-started testing, so everything is really running pretty much consistent and fine. I don't see any signs.

Q: Have you got your check in the bank, though?

Frentzen: Ha! Look, Tom said to me he is going for it this year, he wants to get some good results and he wants to see what we can achieve. He's said to me that he is trying everything to bring the team further. That's what he told me when I signed. That was also my question when I did sign it, so I do have confidence in Tom that he is trying to do his best.

As Frentzen says, however, money is not his motivation. Success will do fine, thank you very much. A glance at his watch again gives a hint that he is ready to move on somewhere else now - he has the small matter of helping his engineers make his car go quickly again.

And that, to Frentzen, is fun. He is eager to head off and look at the data. He could be there for hours. And for that, he cares less that Schumacher is probably now back at his hotel having a small post-qualifying work-out while his engineers put the final touches to his perfectly honed Ferrari. Now, he is ready to get stuck in and find a solution to his problems.

His energy for such things opposes our vision of the driver in relax mode, but in either sense he is a true professional. By all accounts his technical ability is one of the best on the grid. By my account, his public relations skills are also pretty well honed.

But some say he is not as talented as he is made out to be. Others claim he has not achieved the success his talent deserves, but whichever way you side, you cannot say that, right now, he is not trying his hardest to re-gain some of the credibility he lost when Jordan decided enough was enough.

Frentzen, indeed, has been accused of slacking off and becoming de-motivated by a faster teammate. When he was at Williams (where he replaced, ironically, the Arrows-bound Hill), he was placed into a high-profile face-off with teammate Jacques Villeneuve. He failed to perform.

At Jordan, too, alongside Jarno Trulli last year, things were not so good. Perhaps, then, he lacks that 'killer instinct' needed to become a Formula One success. Unless he and Arrows perform some massive turn-around in form, he is unlikely to achieve more wins there - to get back on the top step of the podium calls for a contract with a major manufacturer these days. Toyota, who he was hotly tipped to join this year, remains hovering in the background. But they too are some way off race winning pace. So is time running out for Heinz-Harald?

"No," he replies unequivocally. "I have the philosophy that if I do not like my job then I would stop immediately. Because it is not healthy to just be around for other reasons. My reasons are here to enjoy my work and do the best I can otherwise I wouldn't do it."

Q: What do you think of the new trend of team bosses choosing 19-year-old drivers, then?

Frentzen: Well, there is always time that it has to happen, that you have to hire young drivers. You cannot live all the time with the old ones. It is quite normal what is happening. I was a young driver as well... oh, no, I wasn't that young I have to say. It was 1994, so I was, actually... um... 27.

Q: When the time comes to stop doing Formula One, would you still look at doing DTM or something, or once you have finished with this it can't get any better?

Frentzen: I don't know really. I don't think too much about that at the moment. [The Jordan] situation caught me out of the blue last year. Basically I was not agreeing with what has happened and I was not in the situation to think 'okay I am retiring.' I think I know when the time is coming to retire, but it would be a waste of time if I would stop now after what happened last year at Jordan.

It seems Frentzen still feels he has a point to prove. He still has to clear his name and wash the Jordan mud off his face. And, at the moment at least, he is managing to do just that. Perhaps that killer instinct is lacking, but the motivation is most definitely back.

That motivation has drawn him to now say enough is enough. The interview ends, and Frentzen is ready for his real work. As the sun begins to dim and the strong heat fades away, he makes a beeline for the garage. With polite goodbyes that are always received from the mild-mannered German, he strolls determinedly away. It's time to develop his plans to fight back in tomorrow's race.

But this time it was to prove a difficult task. Frentzen was forced to battle with a car that was, he claimed, unbalanced and difficult to drive. He ended up in a rather dismal 13th place, one lap down on the leaders. "One to write off" was how Arrows described the race. But that, it appears, is certainly not how one should describe Heinz-Harald Frentzen.