On a day in which luck and a little strategic foresight played a role in David Coulthard's hard-fought victory at the Brazilian Grand Prix, Jordan's HeinzHarald Frentzen and Jarno Trulli were left rueing their lack of both.

Midway through yesterday's dramatic race at Interlagos the pair had looked about to deliver a welcome late birthday present to team boss Eddie Jordan, who turned 52 on Friday.

Frentzen, who had stolen ahead of his team-mate after a muddled pit-stop left Trulli in front of the garage for a second-and-a-half longer, was running third with Trulli in hot pursuit as the skies above Interlagos darkened and a steady drizzle began to fall.

It was the cue for the same kind of organised chaos in the pit lane as had been seen in Malaysia a fortnight ago. Both Frentzen and Trulli pitted simultaneously, the German getting his replacement tyres ahead of the Italian. As they returned to the track it became clear that both had re-established solid positions - Frentzen still third and Trulli in fifth.

Trulli retook fourth almost immediately, bustling past Nick Heidfeld, but as rain abated and the track began to dry it also became clear that something was wrong. While the rest of the field had struggled through the downpour on intermediate tyres, Trulli - on full wets - had looked good, but as a dry line appeared he lost momentum. Trulli was eventually passed again on lap 67 by Heidfeld and was forced to settle for fifth place.

"I am happy to have finished in the points today in what was quite a difficult race for me. I had a very good start and made it up to fourth position at the first corner. I was able to pull away well but, about 10 laps before the first pit stop, I started to have problems with the clutch and couldn't get the same performance from the car as in the beginning, so I struggled a lot.

"Unfortunately I came into pit just one lap before the rain so I had to come in again on the next lap for wets, which were my choice. It's a shame I lost time in both pit stops - the first because the refuelling rig jammed and the second because Heinz was ahead of me.

"The car had over-steer as we didn't change the front wing adjustment, so I struggled from then until the end of the race." It was a sadder end to the day for Frentzen though as he had to limp into retirement on lap 64 with an engine misfire: "I had a good race overall and to finish third here in Brazil for the third consecutive year would have been nice. So of course I'm disappointed to have retired so close to the end," said Frentzen.

As for Eddie Jordan, he was clearly disappointed with how things panned out: "This was our third race in a row in which we finished in the points, which is very encouraging. Unfortunately however, from looking so good 10 laps from the end, the final result was not as we hoped."

It was an even more troubled day for Eddie Irvine. Within laps of the start, the Irishman had been handed a 10-second stop-go penalty as his crew were still on the grid within the 15-second time limit before the start.

That dropped him to the rear of the field and despite a valiant struggle up the field he was unable to guide his Jaguar R2 through the rain and spun off on lap 54.

"This race offered us the potential for a points finish but luck wasn't on our side today. Things didn't begin too well with the stop-go penalty but the team called a perfect pit stop strategy that allowed me to climb up the pecking order.

"I was up to sixth place when I lost the rear end going into turn five. I managed to climb back out on to the track, but the engine had stalled and I had to retire," said Irvine.