8th & 11th for Toyota in pre-qualifying

11th on Friday
By Huw Alban (07/03/03)
March 7 2003

Toyota ended the Friday pre-qualifying session in 8th and 11th fastest positions, with Olivier Panis the quicker of the two. The team had an equally strong free practice session, and these early results are encouraging for the rest of the weekend.

This weekend is the first time that the public get to see the new rules in action, where qualifying is now affected by two separate sessions on separate days. The Friday session decides the running order on Saturday, with the slowest on Friday going first on Saturday. The sting is that the race on Sunday will commence with the same tyres and fuel at the end of the single qualifying run on Saturday - look out for some weird and wonderful strategies during the race proper.

Friday free practice for Toyota was pretty uneventful. Cristiano de Matta used 24 laps to learn the track and get ready for his pre-qualifying run, netting 15th fastest in the process. Team mate Olivier Panis only managed 12 laps, until a fuel leak interrupted his day, but he still managed a respectable 13th fastest time. Panis also experienced problems with understeer in sector one, which if he had managed to rectify to match da Matta's sector one times, would have netted him third fastest during the pre-qualifying session - impressive !

"I found more understeer than I expected through the tight first part of the lap and I couldn't get the car turned-in as I wanted, but the rest of the lap was okay and I think we can all be encouraged by the potential," Panis said to Toyota-F1.com . "Cristiano also did a very good job on his first time at this track."

"We had some problems in free practice this morning, so we changed the set-up of the car a lot and I was quite pleased with the performance of the car in the session; it is very promising. I had some understeer on the first corner of my fast lap, which lost me some time, but I am very happy for the team that we see this potential. We now have a lot of work to do tonight before the practice and qualifying tomorrow."

Eleventh placed Cristiano da Matta was very pleased with his efforts on his first time out with Toyota. "Obviously, not being so familiar with the track meant that it was important for me to try and keep everything together, so I'm happy with it. But on the other hand, I'm a racing driver and we are never satisfied. What is better than the result for me, is to see the potential of the car and the team."

"Today has been a difficult day for me, because this was my first time on the track and I only had 24 laps this morning to familiarise myself with everything. I am sure like every driver, I feel like I could have done better, but I am happy with the result and more encouraged by the overall potential of the car and the team."

Team Principal, Ove Andersson, was also equally pleased. "I think generally speaking the car and drivers showed very good potential. Both Olivier and Cristiano were really flying and I think it is a good beginning to the weekend. Considering Cristiano had only 24 laps to learn the track this morning, I am very impressed with his performance."

The praise didn't stop there with Chief Designer, Gustav Brunner, chipping in, ""To be 8th and 11th in the opening session of the weekend is quite a good result for us. We have had no doubts about the clear ability of our drivers, Olivier and Cristiano, and they did not let us down today. Both did a good, solid job and we remain confident and hopeful for the rest of the weekend. Particularly promising was the fact that Olivier and Cristiano set the best and third best times in the middle sector."

All in all a very encouraging performance from the team so far. It'll be interesting to see what games the grid play with each other throughout the 2 free practice sessions tomorrow (Saturday), and may well give us a taste for what the team intend to aim for in their qualifying runs on Saturday. Tune in to find out how they did.