Trulli Shocked at Frentzen's Departure

Italian Jarno Trulli said on Thursday that he was shocked by the sudden departure of teammate Heinz-Harald Frentzen from the Jordan team and admitted he was waiting to talk to the German about the incident.

Frentzen, who had extended his contract until the end of 2002, was sacked by team boss Eddie Jordan on Wednesday following seven successive races without a point and Trulli admitted he was surprised to lose his teammate in mid-season.

"Of course it was a big shock," Trulli said. "It's not nice to come here and not have your usual teammate. It is not good for anyone to lose him in the middle of the Championship and especially before his home Grand Prix. I'm totally surprised as Heinz seemed to be working well with all of the team. The team have a big German sponsor and now we have a new driver at this race, it will be hard.

"I've not spoken to him (Frentzen) yet but that is deliberate. I know it is a hard situation for him at the moment. I don't want to ask him what happened now, because I know now that he will want to sort the situation out with the team.

"Anything can happen in Formula One and from one day to the next you can never relax. I think this is something really big and I don't really want to get involved. But it must have been something big to cause it."

Brazilian Ricardo Zonta will replace Frentzen at Hockenheim but Trulli defended Jordan's results as a whole and claimed that the team had been unlucky this year.

"To be honest the results are not as bad as people probably think," he added. "We sometimes have a very competitive car, especially in qualifying. The races have not been so good, but we've had some problems with the car and been unlucky.

"We have not achieved what we want but the package is there and it is just a case of developing it. We have worked hard all season and the atmosphere has been good. I couldn't feel that anything was wrong."