Jarno Trulli is frustrated. He is undeniably one of the more talented drivers in Formula One today, and yet, after 70 Grand Prix starts, the Italian driver has only 24 World Championship points to show for it. Last weekend was, to some extent, the epitome of Trulli's career so far: circumstances and poor reliability contrived to deny him of a brilliant third place in qualifying, and a well deserved points-finish in the race. Roger Horton talked to the somber youngster during the Canadian GP weekend and heard from him about his struggles with Lady Luck

The place is at the back of the Jordan garage area. The time is just moments after he was forced to retire his car from yet another race, this time the Canadian Grand Prix, and after he had been running in the points throughout. The driver is Jarno Trulli and he is not happy. "I had a brake failure," he explains. "The team had been telling me to push and I did try, but towards the end I had no more brakes and so I just had to retire."

But the tone of his voice and the body language of the moment tell the real story. Here is a driver deeply frustrated with his team's inability to provide him with a car that can match his talents and his Latin temperament is being tested to the full. "The real problem," he continues, "is that we have to keep cruising around the track, we cannot race, because every time you start pushing we get problems - with the engine, with the gearbox, with the tyres. At the moment we don't have a car that you can push from the first to the last lap, and this is frustrating for a Formula One driver."

Indeed it is, especially when it has been happening for a season and a half and there is no end in sight.

Going into last week's Canadian Grand Prix, Jarno Trulli had garnered just 24 points from 70 career starts, hardly the sort of statistics that would normally make the pulse quicken, or attract the attention of a Ron Dennis or a Jean Todt.

This, of course, is so often the lot of a driver with a midfield team - lots of gritty drives and hard work, but not much to show for it at the end of a race weekend in terms of points scored or Podiums mounted. Take a snapshot of Trulli's recent record and you could be mistaken for thinking that he is just another driver who will never make it as a regular race winner, let alone a championship contender.

Yet Trulli's record in karting as a youngster was sensational, good enough to have Benetton boss Flavio Briatore sign him to a long-term management contract and ease his way into F3 racing mid way through the 1995 season. The following year, he breezed to a title win in the German F3 championship, and then it was straight into Formula One with Minardi. But midway through the 1997 season Olivier Panis suffered a horrendous crash in Montreal driving his Prost, and Trulli was quickly drafted in as the Frenchman's replacement.

Back then the Prost team was showing signs of real promise. Running on Bridgestone tyres and with Mugen-Honda power, the team was shaping up as a regular points contender, but no one was quite prepared for the Austrian Grand Prix, where Jarno Trulli led the race in fine style, and was on course for a stunning upset win until his engine expired.

It was all too good to last, and it didn't. The following two seasons with the Prost team saw the relationship deteriorate and now the Italian only has bad memories of that period of his racing career. "The worst memories," sighs Trulli. "The car was OK in my debut year, but in '98 and '99 the car was really bad and so moving from Minardi to Prost turned out to be a bad move."

Since that brief but glorious ray of sunshine in Austria, Trulli's career has stalled somewhat, and he has had to rather sit on the sidelines as new young drivers like Jenson Button and Kimi Raikkonen have entered the sport to rave reviews - overshadowing, perhaps, Trulli's early F1 credentials.

"I can only say that I wasn't very lucky in these last few years," Trulli now says. "I was never in the right place and the right time, because to perform well you need a good car and a good team and I have seldom had that. I have to say that when I had that combination I was on the top as I was in Austria in 1997. It's so difficult to achieve a good result when you change cars, change teams and your car is not good anymore.

"Sure it is a bit frustrating; but in racing, as in life, you need some luck sometimes." He shrugs as he says this, perhaps prepared to accept that sometimes the cards just fall this way. But his earlier sharp reaction to the mention of his two bad years with the Prost team is an indication that some deep frustrations still remain.

The Jordan team were on a high at the beginning of the 2000 season when Trulli escaped from his misery at Prost and joined the Silverstone based outfit. They were third in the Constructors' standings the previous year and Heinz-Harald Frentzen had scored two wins on genuine merit. At last it appeared Jarno was going to get his hands on a car that would allow him to show off the full range of his talents. Twice he qualified his Jordan on the front row of the grid, and at two sharply contrasting circuits - Monaco and Spa-Francorchamps. But in the Principality his gearbox - the Achilles' heel of the 2000 Jordan - failed, and in Belgium a tangle with Jenson Button cost him his race.

Once again, all his speed and commitment had brought him no reward. Spa is the ultimate test for a Grand Prix racing driver and Trulli's qualifying efforts had marked him out as a driver of exceptional talent, even if events in the race proper were to conspire to deny him his due reward.

Now, already halfway through this current season, Trulli is already concerned that Jordan's early season momentum is being lost. He admits that this year's car is a step forward, but whether it is enough of a step given that their opposition is not standing still is the real question. "Of course this year's car is much more reliable, although in speed it is pretty similar to last year's car," he offers. "We have been losing a little bit of our competitiveness in the last few races. I think we really need to develop the car more as it is pretty much the same as it was at the start of the season and yet everyone else is developing theirs."

A large part of the Jordan package is, of course, the Honda engine. Last year, Trulli had the reliable but ageing Mugen unit behind him, so just how much better does he think the full works version is this year? "It's clearly better in terms of power, driveability, weight, size, everything. But I think they (Honda) are struggling a little bit to supply two teams and it is going to be difficult for them to develop the engine fast enough."

This is not exactly news to those with even half an ear to the ground in the F1 paddock. But Trulli's comments come at a time when there is considerable talk that Honda are reviewing their engine supply policy, in particular their decision to supply two teams. The rapid progress made by their archrivals BMW has left the Japanese engine company rather breathless in the never ending horsepower contest, and concentrating all their energies on just one team is thought to be an option under serious consideration.

Trulli denies that he feels any added pressure on him due to this internal Honda competition between Jordan and the other Honda powered outfit, British American Racing. "The pressure is not really on me. After all a driver always wants to do the best for himself and for his team, but everybody knows that you can only get the results if your car is good enough, so I think the real pressure is on the team."

Which brings us back to Canada and yet another DNF, his fourth in eight races. The weekend had started well enough - eighth on Friday and some good progress made on a strong race setup. But he got everyone's attention when, on his first qualifying run, he banged in a 1:16.482 which was good enough for P1 even if only for a few minutes. "It was," said his team boss Eddie Jordan later, "one of the best laps I have ever seen him do."

Trulli was pretty pleased with his driving during the session too. "I must say that today our car was performing very well, to be honest this morning I was hiding a little bit, carrying a bit more fuel compared to the others. In qualifying I was doing a great job, the car was performing well, and we were doing some very good laps and we were there, we were fighting to improve the car for the last lap, because you know on the last run you can really push and give your best effort."

Unfortunately, Jarno was to be denied that last run. With just over one and a half minutes remaining, the qualifying session was red flagged for the second time when the Sauber of Nick Heidfeld hit that unyielding brick wall at the start of the pit straight. As the Italian entered the pitlane, the marshals in the Parc Ferme, who were under the mistaken impression that the session was over, held the Jordan for inspection. By the time the confusion was sorted out, Trulli had run out of time to make his last run, but David Coulthard did have time and managed to take Trulli's hard-won third position on the grid, demoting the Italian to fourth.

So a bitter sweet result for the young Italian. On one hand, fourth on the grid represented his best qualifying position of the year, one better than the regular fifth placed slot he has managed in Malaysia, San Marino and Austria, but a third place slot in a Jordan around this tricky drivers' track would have meant a good deal more.

In the race, Trulli made no mistakes and but for his mechanical problems would have easily held on to his fourth place to the end, which would have equalled his best placed finish for the year. "It's very important now," he said after the race, "that we work hard to resolve the problems that have hindered us over the last few races, and return to our competitive form."

One of those problems, of course, has been the team's troublesome launch control, the failure of which saw Trulli stranded on the grid in Austria. In Canada he refused to use the system, preferring to rely on his own driving skill to get him off the line. "I prefer to use a manual start," he said firmly before the race. "After our Austrian disaster I don't want to take these risk anymore, and anyway I usually make pretty good starts when I am in control."

Indeed, Trulli is one of the few drivers that appear to regret the increasing intrusion into Grand Prix racing of electronic driver aids that dilute the input of the more skilled racer. "I think it was nicer before when everybody had to use his skill to make a good start. Now everything seems easier and everyone can make a pretty good start. So let's say the level of driver skill required is much more flat."

So you're an old fashioned driver at heart then, I enquire? "I wouldn't say that," he replies with a smile, "but it's just that the introduction of electronics takes away some demands on the driver."

Trulli might deny being an old fashioned driver, but he has some old fashioned values. Earlier this year he dedicated his fourth place finish in the Spanish Grand Prix to the memory of his compatriot and former Ferrari driver Michele Alboreto, who was killed testing an Audi sports car in preparations for the Le Mans 24 hour race.

"To be honest I didn't know him very well; I met him only once or twice," Trulli reflects. "We are different ages and he wasn't involved in Formula One anymore when I came in. He was someone I knew only as a driver when I was growing up. He was someone I came to know as a very simple person, someone very nice to talk to, that's all I can say really, but when I was growing up of course I used to watch him driving in his Ferrari."

The mention of Ferrari brings on the inevitable question. Which red-blooded Italian driver does not harbour a burning desire to race for the legendary Maranello based outfit at some stage in their career, so what about him? Jarno Trulli has obviously been asked this question many times before and his answer is on his lips before the question is fully framed.

"Well at the moment no, you can't say what will happen in the future, but at the moment it is not something I want to do," he says, put simply. Given the iron grip that Michael Schumacher currently has on the team, this is hardly surprising, and Trulli is happy to confirm that he has not signed for any team at this point in time for next season.

"My contract [with Jordan] runs out at the end of the season, and I still have to decide where I am going to be next year," he says. And, given his comments and obvious frustrations at the end of the Canadian event, anywhere but Jordan might be one conclusion. However, Trulli is under a long-term contract option to Benetton boss Flavio Briatore, which is hardly an attractive option at the moment, and the more competitive teams than Jordan have no openings, which is why another season with his current outfit looks the most likely outcome of his contract talks.

Whatever the outcome, as Jarno Trulli showed in Montreal, he is fast, committed, and hungrier than ever for that first breakthrough win. Ron, Jean, were you watching?