Thursday June 26th, 2003

Jordan drivers Giancarlo Fisichella and Ralph Firman swapped their Formula One cars for a World Rally Championship Ford Focus ahead of this weekend's European Grand Prix.

The event took place today on a short tarmac stage just outside the Nurburgring circuit, and both drivers had Estonian Markko Martin as their teacher before they took to the wheel of the Focus WRC.

Martin is Ford's driver in the World Rally Championship and recently scored his first win.

"It was a great experience," said Fisichella after the test. "I competed in the Monza Rally in 1997, but not in a car as good as this, which seemed to be as responsive as my F1 machine."

F1 rookie Firman, meanwhile, had some trouble listening to the pace notes read by Martin's co-driver Michael Park.

"Having someone tell you which way the road goes certainly gives you confidence, but when he started telling me what was coming up a few corners further on, I couldn't remember what he'd said," said Firman.

"The car handled superbly, even though there was a bit more understeer than I expected."

Published at 18:16:42 GMT

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