Jordan slow on the streets of Monaco

Quicker
By Phil Giles
May 22 2005

Amidst all of the rumour in the Monaco Paddock, there has actually been some track action, although for Jordan it's perhaps one of those sessions to forget.

Jordan's Narain Karthikeyan for the first time this season actually became the slowest man on the track. He managed to post a time slower than Christian Albers in the new PS05 Minardi.

Narain has never driven at Monaco before now and is having a hard time adjusting to this style of street racing. The car's balance has been difficult for both Narain and Tiago but both are hoping to put it right for qualifying two and the race.

Narain said: "I had problem warming up the tyres this afternoon and I also struggled because I missed quite a lot of running on Thursday after I made a small mistake and touched the barrier. This is my first time on this demanding and challenging circuit so I find it difficult to familiarise myself. However, I will push very hard tomorrow and try not to make any mistake during the race."

"We struggled a bit with the balance and the set-up here and it is quite tricky in street circuits if your car is not well balanced." said Tiago. "However, we will now analyse the gathered data and I think we will go in the right direction for the race tomorrow. The race is very long in Monaco so everything is possible."

Trevor Carlin commented: "It was a tough qualifying today for both our drivers on this difficult Monaco circuit. We have not performed quite as well as we had expected but this race is all about getting to the end and with our good reliability record this year I hope we can get a decent finish out of it. "

Narain had an engine change after practice which means that he will start at the back of the grid. Tiago ended qualifying one in 16th place.