Narain Karthikeyan was happy with his fitness after undergoing a strenous training for the San Marino Grand Prix coming up at Imola in Italy this weekend.
"I did a lot of kilometres and I am particularly happy with my fitness. I do not really know what to expect from Imola because out of the Jordan drivers, I am the only one that has never driven on this circuit," Karthikeyan said.
"It looks like I will need to use the kerbs a lot to get a good time, which will probably be a bit tricky. But having said that, Malaysia was also difficult, however I did well there so I am ready for the challenge and I will give my best."
Karthikeyan and Tiago Monteiro carried out two days of testing for Jordan Grand Prix on the Circuit Paul Ricard, in the South of France on April 14 and 15, contributing to the team's preparations for the San Marino Grand Prix.
The drivers' schedule consisted of intensive work on Bridgestone's tyre test programme, set-up work and potential modifications for forthcoming races.
Karthikeyan completed the greatest number of laps on Thursday with 183 laps. Between them the drivers clocked up a total testing mileage of over 1000km and fastest lap time was on the last day with Monteiro's time of 1.00.505 (66 laps).
The rookie Indian driver, who failed to finish the last GP in Bahrain, was hopeful of another decent finish at Imola next Sunday and was happy with the progress.
"The test at Paul Ricard last week went very well. We did a lot of work trying to find the right Bridgestone tyres for San Marino but also for the next European races. We have also tested some new parts for the car and we are definitely making some progress," Karthikeyan said in a press release by Jordan.
Jordan Grand Prix is looking forward to the first European race of the 2005 season after a productive test at Paul Ricard, in which the team's two drivers completed more than 1000km of test mileage.
Their schedule concentrated on race simulation work for reliability testing along with further work on Bridgestone's tyre programme and some developments with the car, contributing to the hope for improvements in performance for the San Marino Grand Prix and the forthcoming races.
"It was definitely a good test and a good motivation to move on and push harder every time. Imola is not an easy circuit for the kind of car we have at the moment but generally I like this type of track.
"It will be very bumpy on the kerbs and very violent. Reliability throughout the weekend will again be very important and we will make sure we will keep on doing a good job as we have done since the beginning of the season and have a good result at the end," Monteiro said.
Jordan Sporting Director Trevor Carlin, who was happy with the test, was now looking forwart to Imola.
"We had a very successful test at Circuit Paul Ricard last week, where the drivers learnt a lot about the car and the team made a few improvements," Carlin said.
"Hopefully we can keep on building on our promising start to the season and keep improving in general on all different aspects," he added.
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