S10 E9: Frentzen's incredible 1999 season - with Heinz-Harald Frentzen!

The Athletic The story of how Hightout, Frenzard and Jordan nearly won the World Championship back in 1999 is so famous that it was one of the first topics we ever covered here on Bringback V10s. Then a couple of years ago, something special happened. The man at the centre of this story, Hightout, Frenzard himself joined Twitter, where he quickly became a cult hero as he often replied to fans, asking him questions about his career and sharing clips and memories from his time in F1. That inevitably led to him becoming the most requested guest from our audience. And when your social media bio is simply F1 history and beyond, as Frenzard is, how could we not try to get him on the show? So with a bit of encouragement online from our audience, which we are very grateful for, Hightout, Hightout agreed to join us. And rather than just look back at the end of 1999, as we did in season 1, this time we are going to review his entire year and get a real insight into how his career was reinvigorated after those two difficult years at Williams. We'll bring Frenzard in shortly, but first I won't be doing this alone as Ed Straw is here with me, Glen Freeman, Ed. You were on the show last time we did this topic and I wonder, can you remember what you chose as your first thing that comes to mind back when we were recording in lockdown in 2020 and will you say the same thing again? I think this is probably one of the more predictable ones because it's just the nerve-wrong, isn't it? The Jordan grinding to a hole coming out of the pits while in a commanding position. I think that's one of the enduring images of the whole season. Yeah, as Frenzard was one of the easier ones. I wouldn't, to be honest, I wouldn't always back you to remember what you'd picked as your first thing that comes to mind straight after we record, but I'm sure you're right this time. I haven't looked out. Let's get some of our audience memories next. Given the role so many of you played in helping us get Frenzard on the show, we've got to let you all have your say as well. We put this one out on Instagram though, mainly so, Heinz Harold's notifications didn't get spammed on his Twitter/X account. Gabrielle Lima says, "The beautiful yellow Jordan adding, 'This car is the wallpaper of my phone at the moment.' Professional moron is that you, Ed, says, 'The bright yellow car being the ultimate underdog, turning Frenzard into a cult legend in the process.' Ben Depue says, 'How great his helmet looked with that livery.' A lot of love for the look of the Jordan 199 clearly. Alex Dallandorfer says, 'Title bid and smashing Damon Hill and Toby Locke says, 'How good he made the car look compared to Damon.' There's quite a lot of Damon chat coming up in the Frenzard bit of this episode. I hope it's quite good on that.' Ben Carter says, 'Almost world champion in a Jordan and Stuart Fold says the outsider who nearly won it all.' Dan Wainwright says, 'Frenzard at Jordan being the Frenzard Williams thought they were signing. I really like that one.' Lastly, let's wrap up some of you who, like Ed mentioned, the inevitable, the heartbreak of the Nürburgring where Frenzard's car ground to a halt. We had that from Craig Curtis, Tom Bennett, Colin Mills, Simon Partridge and James Moody among many others. 'During that period when he was at, and that's Frenzard, Frenzard and Fissy Keller as ex-in in the pit lane, Frenzard stops, he's lost the prop. On turn three, that's his race run and Eddie Ervine, Eddie Jordan is gutted. Both his cars out of the race and that is the end of Hightower, Frenzard's chance of winning and getting ten world championship points, which means to say that David Kulfan now is on ten world championship points. Remember? Right, let's bring in the important guest on this show. It is the one and only Hightower, Frenzard. Welcome to Bring Back V-Tens. I love the Jordan cap that you're wearing as well. You've come prepared. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We start every episode in the same way. The first question I have for you is, when you think of your 1999 season with Jordan, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Well, first to say hello, everybody. It's nice to be back on the podcast, which I don't do very often. So I'm a bit more shy than anything else, but the nice having me guys here. Well, the first thing in place was for me that, well, it's hard to say because my first impression was my first test in Sussuka 98 when we had the last race for the 98 season in Sussuka. I jumped into the Jordan team and initially I got very deep in discussions with Sam Michael. So for me, Jordan was basically, most person I spoke in the team was Sam Michael, basically yes, and then any Jordan, of course. But there was my first impression and my first impression was not so much about getting to know the people as quickly as possible. My impression was more, my focus was more to get the car to know the car as much as possible. And I was very curious. And it's very curious for them as a team and myself as well to get to know each other. Now how they teamwork, what are their secrets, if there are any secrets, how they work with my curiosity. Yeah, we're going to talk about how things started off in a moment. Bico incident, your teammate that year, Damon Hill, he actually answered the same question in response to a fan on Twitter or X recently. And all Damon said was, I don't remember anything about 1999 except HHF was super quick and I wanted to go home. But let's start with how your Jordan deal came together. You've said previously that your market value was low after two tough years at Williams. So there wasn't that much interest in you. But Eddie Jordan was interested because he knew he could get you on a cheap deal. Eddie wrote in his book that when he contacted your manager, you'd been having talks with Salva, but they weren't going very well. So a deal with Jordan actually came together quite quickly. And Eddie said that despite the tough Williams spell, he had every faith in you. But many other people in F1 thought you were demoralized and on the scrap heap. Eddie admitted to wondering why Williams had let you go, saying, I asked myself if Frank knew something that I did not because I reckon heinds to be very good. So obviously Jordan finished 98 really strongly. Were you happy then that after the difficulties of Williams, a team of this level had approached you and wanted to sign you for 99? Yes, of course. I mean, I got in touch a couple of times with Damon. In the race, I knew the car was very competitive or let's say in the top four category. In 98, the Williams car wasn't as hard in the top three in terms of performance. So I was looking forward to have a similar car speed change. McLaren and Parary were the different works. So I was quite happy when Eddie approached me and by the time I was having a look as well to Indycar racing. And probably you have read it as well. I did a comment once that I wasn't in contact with Bobby Rehal. But I wasn't really keen enough to do a complete different direction. Formula 1 was my specialty. So I took first rather staying back in the Formula 1. So I think in September in the Spar 98, we got everything picked together. Yeah, which Eddie. It was quite quick. I mean, the terms were quite easy. I mean, I mentioned to you, Eddie didn't offer me a big salary. But I think you regret after that. He gave me a point bonus for every point I get. And this was exceeding the basic salary by far. But at this stage, I was taking the situation. I didn't really mean to negate, but I was very motivated to go up with Eddie. Eddie also said he felt this was a significant moment in Jordan's history as a Frenzzen Hill line up meant this was the first time that the team went into a new season without a pay driver boosting its finances. And Eddie said that showed serious intent. The launch of the team's 1999 car, Eddie added that he felt a Jordan style of team would be a good fit for Hentzhal. Frenzzen psychologically, and he was pleased to be signing another proven race winner alongside Damon. And let's bring you in here. What did you think when you heard of Jordan sweeping for Frenzzen? Well, I have to add the caveat that I was 18 at the time and didn't really know what I was talking about. So I thought it was a terrible move, because even though I'd been a fan of high-tailed friends in the Salber days, I'd bought into all the anti-French and rhetoric from Damon Hill being replaced, which I was completely wrong to do, and I'd like to take the chance to offer an apology for having done so. (laughs) So actually when the deal was done, I thought it was a mistake. I changed my view after and my view now is very, very different, but at the time, yeah, completely wrong. So you have my most sincere apologies for losing faith in you and not really understanding the situation you've been through. - That Williams. - Yeah, thank you. Well, thank you. I mean, it wasn't a bit precarious because I replaced Damon for the '97s, and '90s, and I had a contract for two years. But the end of the day, I just reflecting it after. It was basically the wrong time for me joining the team and I should have gone earlier, but we weren't in contact already in '94. Frank approached me in '94 after Senna died in Imoana. I was a shock for everybody, and I was a shock when I was asked by Frank to replace Senna. At that moment, I couldn't leave Salvador. I was so happy to be in Formula One and Salvador gave me the chance to enter Formula One. So I said to Frank, this is not the time, the right time for me. It would have been probably a better time for me to go there after all, but I couldn't leave the team. So I said I stay with Salvador, as long as I have a contract. And so we stopped the negotiations, yes. And in '97, when Frank wanted me, I think that was the wrong timing. Yeah, the both of the wrong timing. But life is like this, you know, you cannot really control everything. It was a talking point at the launch, actually. The fact that you and Damon were now together after you had taken his drive for '97. Damon said he had moved on, and he said that, you know, it was Frank Williams' decision, not your decision. So he should have no problem with you. And I think he even joked that, you know, you guys had something in common now because you'd both left Williams. Did you ever talk about it, though? Did you ever talk about what happened for '97? Not really. I mean, we just carried on. I think for Damon, and it was a different situation as for me. I wasn't thinking too much of a competition with Damon. Damon was really a team mate. We had very open discussions about everything, but we didn't get too much into details like with the Williams times, you know. I think both of us had it behind us. And there was nothing really to steer it up again, you know. We were both focused for the season. I think Damon was a bit more focused trying to have a competition with me. I mean, he was a bit older, but I had a lot more, let's say, momentum behind me because I was extremely motivated. Yes. And for me, the '97, '98 season wasn't a season to be proud of. I wasn't really happy with myself, and also with the circumstances. So I learned a lot with the Williams team. So my target was basically not to be Damon, but to do the best job possible. Yes. And I expected Damon to do his best. So we just had a very fair relationship. So things started, well, Eddie was happy to have you. Damon was happy you were there. You mentioned Sam Michael earlier. Later in 1999, Sam did a magazine interview where he said that your working relationship got off to quite a difficult start in winter testing. He said, you struggled to work well and that you disagreed dramatically on setups. Sam said it was normal to have some different ideas between a driver and an engineer, but he felt you guys were having more clashes than usual. And he said that he could tell in testing that these clashes were maybe hurting your confidence. And he said that Eddie Jordan played a big role in resolving those issues. He was talking to you both, trying to smooth things out. And Sam said, actually, by the time you got to February and the new car was ready, then everything clicked. But do you remember it being difficult at the beginning to work with Sam? I don't have it so much in mind, maybe for his view, probably because I was pretty much trying to find out myself how the car is working. And I did probably have some very different approach to my work. I mean, those days we had already everything in numbers, the car performance, the aerobalant versus speed or mechanical roll distribution in numbers, technically it starts. I don't know if people follow this so much. But in these days, we had numbers and numbers and numbers. But I came from Williams. And I learned there to work with many steps together. And you do, for example, a setup change. And you do only kind in little changes. But at the end of the day, you need to have a focus, a plan to say, for example, I need to have a balance in this high-speed corner. And I need a good balance in the slow-speed corner. You can't get really together at the same time. So we have to sacrifice it. So I did very comprehensive setup changes, which probably Sam wasn't experiencing that as a driver coming from Williams, I tried to explain it. We did a lot of changes with the car. And I did learn quite a lot. And what I'm trying to do here is only to find the right envelope where we can do the setup work to understand the car properly. Not only that we have numbers where we rely on, but we also have physically my experience information how to set up the car properly. So we had some clashes. And I have to say, we didn't have the best relationship through in the old year. We were also sometimes fighting. But in the end of the day, we had a very productive result. And the proof on the circuit was telling us we were doing the right job with this complications. But the end of the day, we did the job we were supposed to do. I saw it that way. And it's very important, the relationship between the driver and the racing genius is very important that they have an understanding to each other, a confident student, as well, but also that they understand each other what direction the driver wants to go, because you have always an envelope of possibilities when you arrive to the circuit, how much you can get out of the car. It's not easy to get always 100% of the car. You may be finished a weekend with 90%, 80%, 95. But for us, we achieved really always, most of the time, like really the maximum of the car. And that was of course a hard work here. What's very interesting about this is what you talk about there being a driver who goes in and pushes very hard working on all the details. It's so different to where you were when you first got into Williams two years earlier. So it shows how much you'd learned. You'd almost developed as a driver 10 years worth of experience in those two years to be somebody completely different. And in fact, even some of those you were with Mike Gascoin, for example, said at times you were almost too involved on that side of things down the line. But engineers never want drivers to be involved, do they? But it's just interesting just how different you were, because if you were underprepared at Williams, you certainly used those two years to accelerate the learning curve. Yeah, that's true. I learned it the hard way, because it's not like that. Do you drive a team that you understand right away everything out works. So you did step from solver to Williams was a big step for me, from a technical part. And also testing the curve never seemed such behavior. So the curve was aerodynamically much more stable in certain circumstances. And to know where we do fine tune to get the extra bit, at Williams, you had all raster or you say quite a lot of options to get it played. More options than I've never seen before in solver, yes. So you had various possibilities. It's one thing, it's nice to have so many opportunities or possibilities to set up the car, but you can get lost very easily as well because you don't know how it works this together with this gearbox and all the differential changes. You could adjust everything electronically with the Williams, all the differential settings, entry, mid corner exit. Then you could also change brake bias, you could change apart from that, Jack was changing the whole geometric of the car in one day and I was just looking and didn't understand what he was changing like I had to dive and so on. So he was an incredible experience, I had to learn this. I had no chance, nobody would explain me every test I did in the past, so I had to learn it myself. The New York Times app unlocked? Everyone knows the times is behind a paywall. Only subscribers have access to all the reporting. But what if you could explore the times for a month, for free, without putting in a credit card? Now you can. When you download the New York Times app for the first time, your first month in the app is free. A month to go behind the paywall. To see what time subscribers get every single day. All the investigations, the reviews, the recipes, the deeply reported fact-based journalism. If you don't already subscribe to The New York Times, download the Times app today and get free access for 30 days. So if Eddie Jordan had any doubts about you, they were quickly gone in Australia with a second place behind Eddie Irvine despite a sense of problem and a blocked air filter, costing you some power in the second half of the race. But Eddie said that he felt those problems could have cost you maybe half a second per lap by the end of the race. Jordan's technical director Mike Gascoin, who we just mentioned, said you did well to sit bit so close to Irvine and look like you were keeping up. Eddie felt that maybe the team could have won the race in Australia. And he said, "I'm overjoyed with Frenzen. A lot of people had question marks over him, but he hasn't put a foot wrong since he joined us to start with such a good result. Was that a big confidence boost coming into Jordan after the Williams years?" Yeah, of course. I mean, this was a great result for the start of the season. It could be obviously, "Hey, I had the Williams in 1997." So that was a good start. The advantage of the Jordan in '99 was that the car was reliable. We had a very strong gearbox and it was over strong because we went a little bit too heavy as well from the weight from the gearbox, a bit too heavy on the rear side. But it was reliable. That was very important at those days. Ferrari and McLaren wasn't so reliable, but we're just doing quick, but not so reliable. So that helped us basically our reliability and our consistency. We did a really consistent race. And Melbourne is one of my favorite circuits. So it went well. It was a good beginning, of course. We were happy and celebrate the first race. But it didn't mean that we were good on the continue this year. We realized, "Well, Melbourne is a circuit where you don't really see the performance of the car because it's breaking and accelerating circuits. So there's no high-speed corners. There's only one quick combination, but it's not really a circuit like Barcelona where you can see definitely the performance of the car. So we had a good result. We were happy. And we thought, "Okay, let's see what's going next." Yeah. Eddie was happy as well. He felt that while maybe McLaren and Ferrari in terms of speed were in their own race at the front, he felt there was great potential for 1999. And he immediately said that Jordan's target would be third place just behind McLaren and Ferrari. Ed, let's bring you back in for a moment. We know that third place was exactly what Jordan got at the end of the year, but did you think that just this one race, as Haidt's Harold described it there, was this enough proof that Jordan could fight for third? Not just one race, but that race combined with what happened at the back end of 98. And third looked very, very possible. Perhaps not as strong a third as was eventually taken, but yeah, Jordan were in a really good position and they'd been on this upward curve for quite some time. Plus at this point, we also felt they had a two driver lineup, a strong three driver lineup. Actually, it was a bit of a one driver team as it happened over the year, but it was strong enough to get that third place even with one driver not contributing at many points. So yeah, it was starting to look very, very promising for Jordan. This was definitely sustainable, that kind of level, not McLaren beating at that time, but definitely sustainable third place, definitely. Yeah, and then things carried on pretty well. There was another podium in Brazil, despite running out of fuel on the last lap. And there could have been another podium, perhaps, an Imola, if it wasn't for spinning off on Eddie Irvine's dropped oil. That was worth placing. What was my own? This was my own oil or water, paper, which broke. Okay. Yes, yes, yes. I had an engine blew up. Okay. Yeah. A rare piece of Jordan unreliability that year. Yeah, this was one of the technical problems we had very few ones, but this and I think later in Barcelona as well, we had a technical issue. Yeah. It was, we were basically running regularly in the points, yeah. Exactly. And we were in a performance point of view, yeah, with a bit of luck until the other guys got the reliability in pace. They became okay under pressure. Yeah. Yeah. So after this run of early races, Eddie Jordan said that you were the surprise of the season. And then everyone was talking about how well everything had started. You did an interview, I think maybe around Monaco time with auto sport magazines, Andrew Benson and you said, people are saying I've changed. I just feel happy with Jordan. Maybe that is already a big change. It makes a big difference when you have confidence in each other. But you also said, as you told us earlier, you were benefiting from the experience of what you learned at Williams and said, sometimes the bad things can give you a real push. Mike Gascoin said, he didn't know what went on at Williams, but he wondered maybe if they didn't listen to you. And that was why you lost confidence. And Sam Michael said, he never discussed Williams with you, but he felt that the way you were working, the relationship you had with Jordan was what was making the difference. And he said that already by, by May time in 1999, he could see a big change from the guy who arrived at the end of 98 and the one we had in the middle of 99. Did you, did you feel that as well? Did you quickly feel like things were changing or just that you were in a better environment in the early races? It was basically, if a driver arrives in a new team, it's always skeptic. It's skepticism in both sides. And we had such a superb start of the field that the relationship became just positive. Yeah, very, very, the driver feels when the engineers and the team owner is giving you the respect, yes. And so the mechanics and so on. So you get, you get, you get a much better, a take relationship when, when you have a lot of respect to each other. Yeah. So I did respect a lot the team like the engineer side. It was a small team, but they were good guys, yes. They're very focused, very concentrated and smart, logical decision makers, yes. We had a few issues later on, which was a bit, watching it later in the past, reconstructing it. There was some misinformation going around, but basically about Canada, for example, the break issue. But the end of the day, the team made it always very good decisions, yeah. So at the time, a very important voice in the team. And we had to really a lot of up and down. We had also critical moments where we were really, but the whole life was Jordan, was like that, you know, we had some up and downs, very emotional, like Eddie. And the end of the day, it was also a very emotional time, yes, with shouting and screaming and disagreements and joy. When we had a victory or a good result, it was up and down. other than that. And Ed, you've already apologized to Heinz Harold for your previous judgments of him. By this point in 99, looking from the outside, did you feel like we were watching a different driver to the one we'd seen before? Yeah, it certainly felt like that. And that was the prevailing narrative. And it was almost like the drive where everyone was expecting to see it, Williams. And so it was the same driver. So nothing had changed for what I was doing. But just everything around him had changed. And that I think actually taught me how important it can be the environment, particularly when you're dealing with a team like Williams. There's countless stories of drivers having troubles there. It was a very difficult environment for anybody to deliver their best in. So yeah, I mean, there was still a big storyline about when Damon Hill would pick up. And probably even at this stage of the season, I hadn't quite got out of my mind. The idea that yeah, Damon will work it out and get ahead. That wasn't going to happen. But it was interesting how quickly this was turning around. And it turned the story of disappointment from the outside about what happened at Williams to just this brilliant feel good story in 99. The sort of feel good subplot of the first part of the season. And it was a subplot that got better and better as the season progressed. Yeah, let's talk about Damon a little bit then. Because things were going great for Hines. But the same couldn't be said for Damon. He was already having a very difficult start. And this would just turn into such a miserable season for Damon. After Monaco, Damon said he'd been looking at your data to work out what was going wrong. And he said, everything seems great until about halfway through the breaking area. Damon said that he assumed it was something to do is set up. But he said he was finding it hard to accept what was going on. And he had no clue what was wrong. He just said he couldn't get a feeling for the front of the car. In the corners, Hines, did you try to help Damon much when he was struggling early in the season? Well, we had quite an open data exchange. I think Dino Torsor was his race engineer. And we were sitting always close to each other. Most of the time, opposite. And we were talking about the cars. I mean, we had no secrets. I think what I understood also reading on X that Damon started to do left foot breaking very late. Or maybe in that year, he didn't do it at Williams. As far as I remember, maybe he was struggling with left foot breaking when he tried to adapt to that. Because the big advantage of left foot breaking is that once you get that used to it, I don't know if Damon did any karting before. In karting, you learn left foot breaking. But in Formula One, left foot breaking is a different story because the brakes are incredible stiff and hard. So you put up to 180 kilos. I think one sub for example, we measured it once on the brake pedal. And then your weight is helping you on the breaking. But you need to, with the left foot, then try to take the foot off in the right moment. Just to release the brake press in the moment where you turn in, for example, you need to come off the brakes. If you do that with the left foot, you have much more feeling if you are able to do that. If you do it with the right foot, because it was the right foot, you have to be ready to prepare to make the jump. Yes, in the moment where you reach the apex, but you want to go for acceleration. But with the left foot being on the brake pedal, you can do up to the end and already synchronize it with the accelerator, the moment to accelerate. So it was a big improvement for the drivability in Formula One, especially also with the downshifting and into the corner, because you could use a different engine speed or engine RPMs shifting late or shifting early to give extra torque to the rear axle by turning into control. Combined with the brake. So you have to think it three-dimensional, because if you have a higher gear shifting down, you have less torque. So if you put the lower gear in there, you have more torque on the rear axle and then you have to use the brake differently. But you can do that more comfortably with the left foot braking. I think if any question is about it, the statement, it was the transition of learning that, of being a right foot brake of all the time, I was late as well. I only did the left foot braking when I drove Williams. That's how I was also all the time with the right foot braking. It sounds from what you're saying, like Damon was getting in that position where he just wasn't rotating the car quickly enough. So was that what you was seeing with him? He was under-rotated, slightly longer corners. You were on the power earlier, and that just adds up to a whole heap of lat time. Yeah, it's a turn-in phase. When the rear end is light, yes, on the braking, to feel if you have enough load on the rear to turn in, and if you have two tools to control it, the left foot and the gear lever, yes, the engine up here. If you are familiar with that, if you are comfortable with that, then it's easier, much easier. I think these items were years later becoming, anyway, a very crucial item in Formula One, because we used to run also engine idle speed control, yes, that it doesn't mechanically, automatically mechanically. What I did, for example, at Jordan, those days, I was stuffing a lot in this respect. So I had to do it manually, all this tricks. So that was my advantage that I did, I did have a good feeling for doing that. Personally, I believe so. Yeah, that's a really good explanation. The next two races then, Spain and Canada, both retirements, but obviously Canada was the dramatic one, the late race brake failure while you were running seconds. Nasty, a nasty accident. The force was so big that broke the headrest in the car. Reports at a time said you had a mild concussion plus injuries to your shoulder and to your knees. When you got to France, you said that you felt a little bruised, but otherwise you were okay, but you called it one of the biggest impacts of your life. Just how bad was this crash? Well, it was shocking bad because I remember I immediately realized that the brake was gone, my front left brake is and it was a right hand corner and the car would immediately turn without being able to control it. And then this part, it was not so much gravel click on the wall and I still had like nearly 180 KPH at the impact. They said the impact. And the wall was coming so far towards me. I was thinking honestly, I'm not sure I'm going to open my eye after that crash, yeah, but it was so quick because but I realized this is going to be a big, big impact. And I had a concussion. I remember in the video after I was walking out of the car, was seeing what's going to go. And I was with the two doctors and I was walking and everything seems fine. Like I was talking to them, but I only walk up in the hospital a few hours later. Yes. So I had a kind of concussion and I wasn't awake basically. It was a strong concussion. But I wake up in the hospital fine and what I didn't realize when I was released the next day after because it couldn't find anything broken. I could walk, yes. I couldn't walk because I could walk. I need crunches and I said I cannot put any force on my right knee. And it was only after my equal race when I went to the doctor that they realized that I had to broken the broken bone, yes, on my right knee. They in the hospital, they scanned me up and down, but they only scanned my left leg because I had a bruise there. I hit with my knee, the skin, you know, and I was bleeding on my knees. I still have a huge piece of bone on my knees now. From this exit, maybe one centimeter thick here, from the crash when I hit the knee cap on the steering wheel. And I was bleeding. That's why they had to check and it was nothing broken. But my right leg hits the bulkhead of the cockpit. At the time, it wasn't supported by form or insecurity. It was the only part left on the car which had no form, security form. And there I just hit my knee so hard on the side that I broke in this just on top again. I put this on X. I have some data on X. I sent the photo, the X-ray photo of this picture of this bone. But I didn't know when I arrived in and and Maxie Kuhar just was broken. I only thought maybe it's a nerf or whatever, but I wasn't able to walk here. Yeah, it's incredible. And it obviously makes it even more incredible that at Mani Kuhar with that injury, you were able to win the race. We did a full episode all about that race a few series ago. Mike Gascoin came on with us, but obviously now it's great to talk to the man who was in the car. Key to the win was Jordan making use of its large fuel tank to switch you to the one-stop strategy. Sam Michael in one of his interviews gave an interesting insight into how you pulled this off. Sam said that Jordan already had in mind that if it rained between laps 15 and 27, they would try to fill the car up to see if they could get through on a single stop. And sure enough, the rain came on lap 21. As we discussed in our previous episode, Jordan had big Dave stood in a field with a phone sending in the weather updates. So they knew that the rain was going to be heavy. After winning the race, you said that the car felt awful to drive when you came out of that pit stop because it was so heavy with fuel and that you were actually worried if you could keep it on the track. Sam said this was partly his fault because he was so busy doing the calculations he hadn't told you be careful because the car is full of fuel and you said actually when you first came out the pits, you were upset with how bad the car felt to drive. In some ways, how hard was that phase of the race just to stay into contention and to stay on the track? I knew immediately it was a heavy car because when I just entered or just exit in the pit exit. The first left hander, I noticed already, this car is heavy. And then I saw luckily this river crossing this long right hander, the river of water and I reduced the speed there for safety and I was still much too fast but I was already so slow thinking I was so slow that no way it's going to be efficient but I had to slow down so much anyway because the river, causing accident there for John Lee, he spun off there for example. There was so much standing water there and I was running over this river and the car was really going off as well. I just slide it up to the end of the storm. And last moment I catch the car and then immediately I knew I'm heavy. So the message was there. And then we had the radio communication but I knew that at that stage it's very difficult that's going to be driving again in time. There was so much water coming down. So that was basically I had for the race this barge in the corner and I tried to do my best. But it's a backside story about this because at this time around Smakniku we were at understanding that the car had a bigger window for running softer springs. We did a complete new setup for Smakniku which at the end of the day that was also part of the success. We ran a lot softer the car basically. But we didn't have much testing with it but we tried to do it and we were prepared to go back to our standard configuration. And we noticed that in dry conditions the car for one single lap it wasn't really a good setup but for race distance it was a good setup. And that was the big difference to Damon's car that we made this huge difference in setup complicated setup with softer springs. And used also a lot of pump rubber, soft pump rubber to just have a progressive impact in full bump years. We managed to get it as optimized as possible and that was the first test in Smakniku race because this setup, this test experience setup was later as well a very important a fair basement for monster few races later. We knew that if we get it right we can improve the car so with this setup I had also a lot better traction in the race. Then Damon for example, he used the harder springs close to the race setup but I had also a very good race setup for a race. That was playing in my car because even though when I was running on low fuel at the end of the race we were on a similar fuel level and Mika and me and I was still faster than him at the end. So it was not only the trick with the fuel. It was also on different of same fuel level the last thing I did I was faster than Mika in the Mercedes Mika in Mercedes which was unbelievable because this circumstance of Mika in would have been much faster normally or normal setup condition here and that's nothing to do with the fuel level. Yeah that's a really good point you pulled away from him after he made his final stop. There was another scare for you in this race obviously when you were exiting the hairpin and you couldn't find a gear and there's a brief moment there where it looks like your race is over. Did you ever work out exactly what happened or was it just a freak moment where the gearbox stopped working? Yeah it was a strange situation. You have to imagine also that your body temperature goes down quite a lot because you are soaking wet so you might have like 18 degrees but with the wind and so on. You get the fingers get numb a little bit. So what happened is either I did shift more than first gear shift the second time down and catch the neutral or the gearbox was stuck between first and second because I hit neutral for a moment here and normally it should happen neutral because you have to press a different switch on the steering to put neutral. But whatever happened we don't know exactly but I have to say circumstances that you are in this circumstances so concentrated but you are really freezing cold in the car. So it could be that you have overreacted this situation. Yeah it could be. So this was obviously Jordan's second wind and Ed will come back to you here. Jordan's second wind another wet race like we had at Spa the year before. Ed how did the two winds compare for you? Yeah they had a few similarities in that they were a little bit rain affected races but this one felt a little bit more significant given it had come off the back of a pretty sustained strong first part of the season and then obviously as science explained there was a step forward of the car as well and it was very well executed. So this felt like a team that was not necessarily massively used to winning at this point was taking that step from just being a team on the up to one that actually could pick off winds when they were there for the taking so it's really well executed. So it felt like kind of the next step forward for this team I feel. Yeah this felt more like a proper win to me because obviously the Spa race there was hardly anyone left it was a great one too but it was a race of attrition. This race had loads of different cars that could have won. After you won the race you said that this was more satisfying than the first win at Imelor in 97. Why was this one more satisfying? Well basically at Williams if you win in 97 that was quite the expected situation. It was another bit of a surprise if you win with a Williams there but if you win with a Jordan it's a different situation. Completely different. It's like the Underdog has got a chance or the Underdog is beating the top teams and that was that was that was simply the case. Everyone loves an Underdog. The other big story though from this weekend in Jordan at least was obviously speculation that Damon Hill might quit in the middle of the season. Damon had just announced he was retiring at the end of the year but he had a terrible race in France and was considering stopping there and then. Jordan lined up Yosfistappan to replace him but went back on that plan when Verstappan was not very fast in a test. The team then announced that Silverstone would be Hill's last race. Damon then said that wasn't the case and apologized for the confusion and shenanigans that were going on around. him while all this was going on heints what did you do did you pay any attention to what was going on with Damon or did you just block it all out yeah I had a little bit of a lot of things in situation but on this side I was basically not following it in details yes I was more focused on my job and on my situation and you hear a lot of things during the weekend and you know when when you listen to all the the ghost or the rumors you can get really nuts so it was I only wanted to have key information if there's anybody so that's why you have your mates around you know your manager or your people who tell you to read the real information to read the yes not all the gossip because the gossip's dry secret and I wasn't expecting Damon to quit I think he had a hard time yes I knew that he had a hard time because I was regular in an important area and Damon was was so unlucky on the same time that the technical issues and and I involved in accident and I was in the same situation to his earlier where nothing was going in the right direction so you know we driver knows that things can happen things can change any moment as well yes you can have a for me it was a question maybe maybe a dust change in the next moment and everything was fine again yeah yeah well all that was going on with Damon in the British ground the week of the British Grand Prix Jordan announced it had taken up an option on you for 2000 there was you said you you talked about rumors just then the rumor at the time was that this was because Jordan were worried about interest from Ford that wanted you for Jack the Jaguar team and it was also reported that you got a pay rise from Eddie so with those two things true was there interest from Jaguar and did Eddie Jordan really give you a pay rise yeah I mean it was basically a one-year contract with Jordan it was like a Jordan now where you have to prove yeah and if you are not doing well you're out yeah that was basically the contract yeah low salary high bonus money but only one year and one option for the second year on Eddie's side yeah not on my side so in that case I said well if you have an option if you want me the second year that must be good reasons so you need to go up with a basic price here because no one gets paid so low and and and that was a term of course you had to raise the price or the salary for the second year but it was basically it was quite here here you signal that earlier that it's going to take the option for second year it was much discussion about it yeah and I was quite happy it was not really there was I was happy to stay at the team so I I didn't really look around as well to show myself at Jaguar or at the other teams here because I was quite everything was sorted for me there was no option rather than staying at Jordan yeah I would want to stay at Jordan at the time as well yeah and as as the summer went on there were more more points finishes and then at the Belgian Grand Prix where you took a third place behind the McLaren's that was where Jordan announced that Yano Trilly was going to be your teammate for 2000 Eddie Jordan said Trilly was one of the most exciting talents he had seen for a long time Yano said it was time for a change after a couple of years of frost and now he wanted to move on to a team where he could win races Ed let's get your view first what did you think of Jordan refreshing its lineup here and moving on to French and Trilly for 2000 yeah that was a great that's a great lineup wasn't it you've got a driver who's absolutely flying and a rising star who's been wasting a few years in a in a poor car so it seemed like a really really good pairing particularly for a team that seemed to be on the up didn't quite continue on the upper trajectory but on paper that was great yeah what did you think I'm so happy to have Yano coming in of course I mean I did not have any input for the decision and but with Yano we had to basically I knew we had more competition from the driver side now because Yano is one of the hotspot in F1 and a very quick driver but I did not know so much Yano before so I got to know him when he joined the team later on yeah so I realized he's very good driver yeah yeah very quick on a Saturday especially let's move on to the second win of the season their Monza this was a race where Mick Hacken and famously spun out of the lead and really left you in control of the race to take Jordan's first and in the end only dry weather when you said at the time you couldn't believe it when Hacken and spun off because he did have a pretty comfortable lead and you also said that if Eddie Jordan had told you at the beginning of the season you would be winning races like this you would have told him he was crazy in the end was was Monza quite a simple victory yeah it wasn't it wasn't that easy I did give a hit before we had experience in Magnicur with going to be even softer this was kind of what happened in Formula 1 over the years if you see the development over the cars that it became softer again with more travel yes with more suspension travel aerodynamic was becoming a little bit more easier to the cars from the ground of like to run such a softer setup so we continued the soft up we had it might be cooler and and managed to get it in the test it was likely that we had also quickly tested the days it we managed to get a spot on I I remember Damon I don't know why Damon didn't like it but it was Damon didn't like this set up because it was it was a big sense with the point of breaking yes so you had to be spot on but it was mechanically much better for the tires and also much better for traction so we took the risk and we tested it in Monza and I did a few laps and I said that's it I don't think we need any more tests you know because that's spot on and I think that Eddie Jordan himself was so surprised that was my reaction to say let's don't touch the car use it for the race yes that he put I think some money and bad outrage for me yeah for him yes to win that's what I heard I don't know it's true but that's what I heard but basically the experience the work was coming from a keyboard and we had it in Monza and I knew the car was superb yes I knew it was it was there but we had also the difficulties with the break that we didn't come up to this item in Canada which was basically the Jordan's main weakness was the airflow between the front wheels and this is a from the view from the experience ahead and after years I know that we knew that the small break that was so much more performance to the car it was up to half a second select in qualifying uses small break that so they were really tiny break that they were just enough to put down the break for qualifying but we couldn't run in the race and that cost us more than half a second to let yeah and that's why we were up there for for position fight with me kind in in Hawkenheim or low down for the race configuration we were anyway more efficient compared to high down for so the high speed circuits like Monza and Hawkenheim and a little bit of star was playing in our hands but we had these issues with the breakbacks and and Monza we had also a better compromise with the break that it was not as quite as small as we would love to have them but it was big enough to cool the break down for the race yes and we just managed to get the car spot on for the to get to the smudge as possible yeah out of the car that was a great great achievement from from from the team yeah to work out this setup the the Monza win meant that with three races to go Hacking and an Eddie Irvine were tied on 60 points heights you were 10 behind on 50 but this is in the days of 10 for a win you said you couldn't believe how close the title battle was and why you didn't think Jordan could beat McLaren on speed you felt there was a chance of winning the championship if McLaren failed to maximize their potential over the final races. Eddie Jordan said you were definitely a contender and he said he would put money on you again by the sounds of it before Hackenon because McLaren has the speed but either the team or the driver has screwed up on too many occasions. He called McLaren's season a litany of failure saying that they should have already won the championship by this stage, big talk from Eddie in public but inside Jordan with three races to go, what was the real feeling about the championship? That's been tough because we knew the circuit's coming ahead for the last two races are not the ones we like because we had to run high down for the competition like in Malaysia you run high down for the competition and in the Nobel-Cream as well and in Tosuka. So it was not our favorite circuit and I knew this was a big challenge for us because as long as we run low down for it we were very competitive but when we run maximum down for it we were like becoming more in this level of penitent and even I think it's too a team at the time, pre-jagging on high down for the competition the car was better than our car, my feeling, my opinion and I knew that instantly. At Nobel-Cream when we arrived in Nobel-Cream we were lucky that the circumstances were in our favor because it was damned, yes, in qualifying. So McLaren and Ferrari couldn't use their whole potential so Eddie was wise they couldn't use the whole potential but we could manage again the best out of the situation and qualifying and managed to get my full position in the Nobel-Cream which was a great surprise for us. Yeah that was incredible. Ed, before we got to Nürburgring what did you think as a fan? Did you think Jordan had a real chance? Yeah I seem to remember at the time being quite excited about it partly because McLaren in particular seemed to be very good at leaving results on the table and obviously Ferrari would depend on Eddie Irvine. So yeah it was an interesting set of circumstances but yeah it was before Monze you'd probably said no but then Monze happened and you thought yeah definitely on. Now we briefly mentioned there the brilliant pole position, the end of this qualifying session at the Nürburgring is incredible. Then we have to get to the part of this story that I think we all wish didn't happen. You led the first 32 laps of the race, there was pressure from Hakinen, Kool-Fard, even Ralph Schumacher was going well, then we get to the pit stop. Everything seems to go well into pits but then by the time you get to the first corner the car shuts itself off. This was because you'd not disabled the anti-stool system after the pit stop. Eddie Jordan said that Sam Michael had forgotten to tell you to press cancel because that was what he normally did. He said that seeing the TV pictures of the car rolling to a stop was the most sickening feeling for him because he said that the first half of the race had gone so well he was now expecting you to win it. If it's sickening for Eddie on the pit wall what was it like for you in the car? It was like a complete meltdown. So high hopes, you were so motivated, everything was running so fine, your favour. It was unbelievable that the situation comes to an end like this, appropriately. Every new accident, there is something wrong with the system, there is something wrong with the electronic. It's over for us today and it was a big disappointment. It was a big hit to the team, it was a big hit also for me because it was like all the sudden somebody was pulling the plug. You have a good party and the neighbour is complaining, okay, that's too loud, we're pulling the plug. Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. Something we do quite often on this show with Ed is we get him to work out what could have happened in races if a big moment was changed. So I'm going to make Ed do that here because obviously the second half of the race Ed was chaos. Johnny Herbert wins it. Do you think does the chaos make it hard to predict what would have happened if the Jordan kept going or can you work out the numbers for us and tell us that Heinz would have stayed ahead and he'd have beaten Johnny Herbert and would have taken another victory? I think for this one all you can really do is say that at the point of coming out of the pit lane, it was the perfect position to be in. We can't really foresee what would have happened. The rain wasn't too far off. So there's any number of things that could have happened, but what we did see that season is that both driver and team were pretty on top of difficult conditions in races, etc. So I see no reason to imagine anything would have gone wrong, but you never know, could have been a bat marker drove into the back of him three laps later or something, anything can happen. But the way it was trending at that point, something would have happened, whether it was any number of other things, obviously people have punches, retirement, that kind of, they're all sorts of things that went wrong for people who could have won that race, but yeah, that was a race that Jordan was on the way to winning entirely on merit without any outside help. So there's no reason for that to change unless something could go on wrong and could have just glided around one the race, no problem or could have gone too corners further and then something else that we couldn't possibly have seen went wrong. But yeah, in my mind I like to imagine it would have been a nice serene drive to victory because it was so, so well deserved. Yeah, it had gone so well up to that point. Heinz, this put you 12 points behind with 20 still available, but did you think the championship was over really now? Yeah, I knew there's only a very slight chance that could win, I think, but I forgot to know the numbers, but I think everybody must have fallen off and I would have to win all the races there, I can't remember, but I instinctively we knew that we missed really the only chance at normal green that we had and the rest is going to be tough now. But we had to basically also be happy that we had such a astonishing season because we achieved that out of a package which was reliable, but not the fastest, but we managed to get really very good performance through the whole season each race and the team spirit was very high. So it's very important to have a good team spirit for this. I think Heinz, our friends and the team Jordan together as a team was a good combination and was a good basement for the next step for the following year. So automatically you think again to the future and hope that you make now the necessary next steps for learning all of the mistakes and make it better for the future. Yeah, I found some interesting quotes with two races to go. Auto Sport Magazine did a big feature where they asked lots of people in the paddock who they wanted to win the championship and Patrick Head said that he wanted you to win the championship. He said you'd raised your game since leaving Williams and you were driving really well. Williams senior engineer James Robinson said you deserved the championship because you'd improved as a driver and you were the only contender not making mistakes. He said he's doing an excellent job in the team that people said was not serious. He realized that he had to save his career and he's done it and he's raised his market value. I don't know if you saw those comments at the time, but was it nice to see that even your old team was supporting you and they wanted, you know, Williams wanted you to win the championship? I didn't know that. No, I didn't. That's a good hint to give me because I wasn't reading all the press calls or lost all the interest in reading the press since I straight said, "Ridians are 97." I wasn't really reading every comment about me after that. I got used to it. So I didn't really notice that. That's a nice gesture. I didn't know that. I had always a big, yeah, I was a bit, let's say, very dry on the train. I think in a lot of Frank on Patrick, after I left Williams, it was a bit more dry of the situation, but I'm quite happy as I heard for the first time. Thank you. That's nice. Obviously, the season fizzled out a bit with sixth place and fourth place in the final couple of races, but Jordan got that third place in the Constructors Championship. So Eddie was happy. You described the season as you said, "Jordan achieved miracles that season and that the year was sensational." Looking back now. 25 years later, how do you feel about 1999? Does the disappointment grow over time or does it go away? And then you just have this like great satisfaction? Well, it's difficult to say because once you get into it to the 99 season again, then then comes up always this never green situation. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, it comes up always when I think about it. It's a very, it was so massive this moment at no, ring that it keeps me normally you intend to forget bad things, you know, because I do remember more things that Jordan, what happened there about the car and the ratios, then the year was winter. It's like it's like Damon, I think when something is not going well, your brain somewhere tries to relieve things like that, you know, the unhappiness or let's say the disappointment, you intend to forget this disappointment much easier than the situation like Jordan, I remember still technical details at the Jordan car. I once brought to Damon if he can remember of the details we had with the brake tax at Jordan, but he can't really remember at all. Damon can't remember anything. No, no, he couldn't remember it. So it's difficult, but at this moment at no, ring still sits deep inside me. Yeah, you were you mentioned that as you got to the end of the season, all focus was on 2000 and being even better in the second year. Eddie Jordan, Axe Zooka said, hopefully this is the year I remember as the one that gave us the confidence to make a breakthrough to take on the world championship. You at the time said that the team learned a lot in 1999 and you expected to be stronger in 2000. You said that you hoped the prize money the team got for finishing third would be like good for the team to invest as long as Eddie didn't spend it all on his boat. So what why didn't it kick on in 2000? Did it was Eddie's boat too big by then? No, I, well, it's a good question. I mean, we did make big improvements. I mean, all teams did improvements from 1990 to 2000, but the big improvement was what I noticed already in Williams in 1997, which Williams was with every new firehead of the others, that the car, the sensitivity we had on the front with the Jordan 99, the airflow between the front wheels was very sensitive. Yes, and when you were steering high angles in corners, the aerodynamic was really consistent here, but we knew that the team knew that obviously, the mic and the team were looking on it, and we did a big step in 2000. So when I did a test in Silverstone, I noticed immediately, we were much closer to the Williams in 1997, we've packaged the corner, yeah, the left right, the left right combination, the car was much more stable, and this was the big step forward. Yes, and I was so happy initially that we really made a big step forward, but as I remember, as well, and maybe that's why my cast gone is a bit upset about me, I was complaining a lot about the steering arms going through the front upright where the brake ducts are, yeah, so we had a hole in the brake duct. So we lost the game braking performance due to a design concept which was not efficient, yes. We should have had, I had told it in the story with Tom Clarkson, and beyond the great, that yes later it was again an experience that the prostate didn't use the steering arm, the front steering arms in the middle of the upright, they managed to get the brake ducts cooling differently, but it's also a mechanically issue, which is, it's not good to have it this way. And if he would have done this right, the car would have done another step in speed, maybe half a second or something like that, yes. And we would have been up there where we finished the 1990s and up there to to fight with the championship, yes, but we had so many reliability problems, we had a much lighter rear end because a lot better as well than in Jordan, 99, that was a good job, but all the changes we made into the positive, hit on the other side caused a lot of other abilities, unfortunately. But you see, I mean, 2000 season, there had a lot of, once I did a mistake in Monaco, in the second place, but in Okinawa, I was the second place catching up Ruben very far until I had an electronic issue. And a few other races, Brazil and so on, I was always in podium positions. But the rear liability was a big issue, unfortunately. One of the things that's disappointing from following your career was that you didn't get another, another chance of the season like 99 because obviously Jordan declined and then you didn't have great drives after that, so not much chance. But I'm interested to know what you think about whether you could sustain that level of performance. Do you think that 99 season with Jordan for you was just the right window you needed to be in and you were a driver who really needed that or do you think that with the right team, the right opportunity, you could have gone on and won 30, 35, gone pretty just banging them in week after week because 99 suggested you could. But we don't have enough data after that to know whether you could have done that or not. Yeah, it sounds fortunately difficult to find out now, but for sure the different story was that the 99 season was so much more experienced for me and the 2000 season. That I would have continued to get the momentum to do and find with the team the maximum performance. I mean, I learned so much over this period a lot more than the previous year. So I did understand a lot more about the F1 car and for me it was more important to have a good relationship with the car designer and the engineer to get really the maximum performance out of the car in an exchange of information and so on. Yeah, so that was kind of after the 2001 season when Jordan Eddie just attacked me and I had to start basically from zero. This was tough times because then I didn't have another opportunity to find a seat which I couldn't prove it. I had the circumstances that I was sitting in the pros car first and it didn't work the car and the year after with the arrows I would love to stay with arrows. I mentioned that before. I love to stay with pros because I like pros. I got to know Adam much better there and I like him very much as a team owner and I think we could have done a good future, but I think at that stage where I was there was too late for them to continue. That first set because I put a lot to do the year with Alan. If the team had kept going in 2002, would you have raced for them? Yeah, I was looking. Yeah, I was hoping. I would have raced for them. Yeah. Nice. Well, I really appreciate all the time you've given us. It's been great to go back through the story of Heinz-Hell and Franssen and Jordan in 1999. Thank you so much for joining us. It's just been a pleasure to go back on this journey back 25 years to relive your greatest season with your help. Thank you so much. Thank you guys. Thank you very much for coming. Okay, Ed, back to just me and you then. My first reaction when that recording finished is just how good was that? Yeah, it was great, wasn't it? It was striking actually. I quite like where Heinz-Hell is in terms of his career. He's got the distance and the times we've reflected on it to be really insightful and interesting in what he's talking about, but you can still also detect that little bit of frustration, the whole nerve-wrong thing, still eat away at him, which I can imagine it would do, but he feels like he's in about the sweet spot in terms of where he sees his career. He could be quite down on it, couldn't he, in terms of not delivering what was possible, but I like the way he talked about what he learned in that Williams spell and how he took that on paper, terrible experience and channeled it. into this great success. So I think it was really insightful and you get a bit of an idea of the kind of character he is and his strengths as a driver, his weaknesses. So yeah, really interesting. Yeah, it was, I'll admit, we had to cut out a couple of questions later on because I knew we were getting tight on time because you ask him one question early on and he goes into such great detail immediately. I remember when he was early into his kind of Twitter journey, he put out a post, something along the lines of like, what do you guys want to see from me? He goes like, I would love to sit here and talk about break by us and front wing settings and all that sort of stuff. And then he said, but sometimes I say something silly or do something like amusing and that gets a lot more interaction. So is that not what people want? And I feel like our conversation allowed him to get some of that stuff out. And the William stuff, it's really interesting you mentioned that because I didn't want to go, I wanted to tread carefully around that because I didn't want to keep going back to, yeah, remember how rubbish you were at Williams, but actually he brought it up quite a lot, which I quite liked the, the Nürburgring thing. You can tell it still hurts. I, I almost, I almost felt bad at one point. I think he said, didn't he? Every time I talk about 99, we have to talk about the Nürburgring and it almost made me feel sad for having to ask him about it again. Yeah, it's interesting. You often get this with drivers as well because it tends to be that the, yeah, they, they look back on the successes fondly, but it's always the, the things that went wrong that seem a bit more immediate. I remember, well, I quite a few years ago now in 2009, I went to visit Jack Brabham and his house on the, on the Gold Coast and talking about a couple of the championships that got away from him. And you could see it was still almost a live issue for him, even though it was so long ago. And I quite like that because I think it shows that they're not living every second of their career forever more, but there's a few little points where they still massively feel it. And I think F1 fans, everyone who listened to that will like the fact of those who still feel a bit of a pang of disappointment that France and didn't win at the Nürburgring and the end of the season didn't play out the way it might have done. The fact that that France and himself feels that as well, it would be easy just to completely shrug it off. He wasn't afraid to admit that, yeah, actually, this is the bit that that matters. And it, it felt more immediate than say the stuff about the Canada crash because that was costly as well. And it was painful. And he talked about the, the damage he still still can detect on his leg. But it feels like that sort of resolved and happened, whereas the Nürburgring, they're still that little thing. And I think that's entirely down to the fact that if the engine had just failed or something had gone, that would be easier to deal with. But it's just the fact that he knows it was him just not doing what he should have done, what he'd done countless times before that will really eat away. Because you're just thinking, if I'd just done that, it would have been completely different. And it doesn't matter what would have happened after because it would have been a grown pre-win. And he didn't get many. So that in itself is worth a lot. And it was just a sensational weekend as well. That probably would have been his greatest win just in terms of turning up and just taking command, assuming he had gone on to win it. So yeah, I like the fact that was still immediate. But at the same time, he could still offer a lot of detail in his, in terms of analyzing that season, his career. But I think it also reflects the fact that he hasn't been a kind of ubiquitous talking head quote all over the place because sometimes you get people to get asked questions a lot. And they sort of slip into their sort of standard version of events. And you almost hear them saying the same thing over and over again. And if you're speaking to them as we are, your kind of battle is to break through that. If you see what I mean and get a little bit, a little bit more. And with friends and though, because he hasn't done it constantly for years, I think it was still sort of quite fresh and he was coming up with some kind of unique insights and not just defaulting to the automatic. So that's what I thought made him so interesting. I hope everyone listening enjoyed it as much as we did. I think you've struck on something quite important there that were, I think fans will like the fact that fans who are upset about what happened at an Urban Green will like the fact and relate to the way he feels about it. I also like there's no bitterness there. Like any emotions he had about 99 not working out at the end was sadness rather than anything else. He doesn't strike me as a kind of a bitter ex-driver who thinks they should have been a multiple world champion. I mentioned that we had to cut out a bunch of questions to get to get to get to basically to get to the end of the season with Frenzen. There was one question I had to cut out for you that I might as well ask you now, which was just near the end. How would you reflect on what Frenzen and Jordan achieved in 1999? It was kind of a last hurrah for the independence, wasn't it? Okay, Honda was still reasonably involved but it was a private tier team that managed to get to the front. You have all these great narratives intertwining, the bouncing back of Frenzen, Jordan on their upward curve and then you've got the counterpoint of Damon Hills rather sad final season. So yeah, I think it was a great achievement and it was probably the point where Jordan was just about to hit that kind of financial gravity that was going to work against them because it was impossible to do this a few years later once F-1 had gone full on manufacture again. Okay, we've had future stories such as the brawn thing which is its own distinctive thing but just this Jordan one is just good old fashioned hard work and the rise of a team over the years from the 91 when they made their debut and that coming together Frenzen being the right driver at the right time even though on paper he didn't look like it at the start of it and that's I think what makes it so enduring and yeah it wouldn't be the same story without the counterpoint of the Williams years and he wouldn't have been the same driver without the counterpoint of the Williams years so it's one of those things where a load of things come together to create something pretty unlikely and it all plays out against the backdrop of McLaren in particular tripping over and leaving points on the table and things not going well for Ferrari, Schumacher being out so it's also a perfect storm as well in that even though Jordan had had a huge amount to make that progress they still needed some help on the outside and that's why it's so frustrating the nerve-wrong thing happened because it just knocked the stuffing out of it they probably wouldn't have won the championship anyway but it deserved the chance to play out properly and have those last two races as a proper title shootout so yeah it's a fantastic achievement and one that probably shouldn't have happened I think you could say and it's it's the peak the zenith of the Jordan story. That's it for Hentaure Freinson's 1999 then a subject so interesting we've now covered it twice over the course of our 10 season so far but we went a lot deeper this time and if you told us back in season one that we'd revisit that topic again four years later with Freinson himself I'm not sure I'd have believed you mainly because I wouldn't have believed that we'd still be doing this by now but we are and there are no signs of us stopping anytime soon thanks to Ed for joining us and of course thanks to Hentaure himself that's all of our regular episodes for season 10 done so all that's left is our top 10 debate and I'll ask us anything season finale the athletic