Sunday September 10th, 2000
Team boss Eddie Jordan
praised the safety of Formula One cars after his two drivers
escaped injury in an opening lap pile-up at the Italian Grand
Prix on Sunday.
German Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Italian Jarno Trulli were
involved in a six-car pile-up with Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa's
Arrows flying through the air at the la Roggia chicane.
All the drivers escaped uninjured. However a marshall was
reported by ANSA news agency to have died after receiving head
and chest injuries following the smash.
"The new chicanes compounded the situation of 22 cars
running very close together and so the first few laps were
always going to be nail-biting," Jordan said.
"The cars were going to be going in at different speeds and
entering the braking area at different times. You'll always have
a problem like we did today.
"But it is a mark of the safety of today's Formula One cars
that they can survive such massive accidents without getting
hurt."
Jordan said race officials made the right decision not to
red flag the race after the opening lap incidents.
"I don't want to get involved in red flag talk," he said.
"Obviously for me, it would be easy to say it should have been
stopped and then get one of the spare cars out again, but the
safety car system is fine.
"It was a bad race for a lot of people but especially for
Jordan. We had two cars running in a strong position and neither
of them have finished the race because both hit each other.
"Last year was a triumphant day and today was a disaster."
Frentzen won the race last year.