Race: Quiet day for the new boys

Alesi, who replaced the sacked Frentzen at Jordan, eventually finished 10th after a quiet Sunday afternoon during which the Jordans lacked race pace. The Frenchman had fallen to 13th at the start but made one of the moves of the race to pass Jaguar's Pedro de la Rosa through the turn one and turn two sequence. And while his Jordan team-mate Jarno Trulli fell back through the lower reaches of the top 10, Alesi gradually advanced to end up 10th after the Italian's retirement.

Frentzen fared less well on his debut for Prost, running near the back of the field after starting 16th on the grid. He did well to avoid one scare when he came across Mika Hakkinen exiting the pits as he was committed to diving into turn one, but the German eventually ended his race in the gravel with 14 laps left to go.

Both drivers will now have chance to become more familiar with their respective new cars by getting some valuable testing mileage completed in the two-week gap between now and the Belgian Grand Prix in a fortnight's time.