Jordan shines in the land of the rising sun.

Boys done good
By Phil Giles
October 12 2002

The Suzuka Circuit in Japan has given Jordan their best qualifying position of the season as local boy Takuma Sato qualified in 7th place and Giancarlo in 8th. Takuma lost time during the warm up when the Honda engine gave out. The team replaced the entire back end of the car in just 27 minutes.

(an impressive feat but having watched them replace an exhaust at Silverstone last week, it's no surprise). The session was halted for 45 minutes after Allan McNish was involved in a terrifying accident, from which he escaped unharmed.

Taku's best moment of the season has come in front of his home crowd.  The amount of support for Jordan and Takuma in Japan is huge.  The TV coverage showed lots of yellow in the crowd and huge banners with "Go Taku Go".  The encouragement has really spurred Takuma on to give his absolute best for the team, despite uncertainty over his future.

Taku:
I'm so happy. That was my best qualifying result all season and one of my best moments in a Formula One car. The team made a great recovery after a difficult morning with my engine problem. The mechanics did really well and James (Key), my engineer, did a brilliant job. The car was good, I was comfortable and drove exactly as I wanted to. I just nailed it! The fan support here is superb, they reacted as if I had won the race and it was just qualifying. Realistically the race is still going to be tough, but my target is to score points.

Fisi:
It’s very impressive. I wouldn’t have expected us to be 7th and 8th so it’s really good for the team. I’m happy for Takuma because it’s his home Grand Prix and he did very well. Unfortunately on my last run the automatic downshift went completely mad and I couldn’t improve my time. I think there was the possibility to be even better yet, but unfortunately that little problem happened. Anyway, it’s been a good day.

Gary Anderson:
The delay in the session after McNish’s accident didn’t seem to hurt anyone and we certainly managed to get going again. It was a very good effort from Takuma and nice to see him have a little bit of luck for a change, at his home Grand Prix. We didn’t have any big problems although on his last run Giancarlo had trouble with the gearshift, which wasn’t working correctly, and that lost him a little bit of time. Our target was to get both cars in the top ten and we’ve done better than that so we’re very happy. All the cars we’re dicing with in the Championship are behind us so it’s all about the race. Anything can happen. It is good to see that Allan McNish is okay after such a huge accident, the FIA should be proud of the safety developments that they have put in place over the last few years."
 

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