Jordan Praises Car Safety After First Lap Shunt

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.