Monaco: Thursday Practice

By Karl King
May 20 2005

Free practice at Monaco began today, with Toyota setting nith, tenth and thirteenth fastest laps. This came as disappointing news to me after all the hype, yet a Press Release from the team described the start as 'reasonable.'

Mechanics working hard on a practice stop to get the
Toyota at it's best.

All 3 drivers Ralf Schumacher, Jarno Trulli and Ricardo Zonta successfully completed their programmes, finishing the second session in 9th, 10th and 13th respectively.

Ralf's day around the twisty track according to plan, but last year's Monaco winner Jarno Trulli struggled, with an apparent lack of grip.

DRIVER OPINIONS:
Ralf Schumacher
"We had a pretty good day and we completed a lot of laps, getting through all our work without any problems. We still obviously have work to do on set-up but that's always the case in Monaco. We'll also have to have a good look at the data to make our final tyre choice. Still, I'm still relatively optimistic for the rest of the weekend. We will be hoping for another strong points finish and doing everything to see if we can make the podium."

Jarno Trulli

"Today was a very difficult day for me. Monaco is one of my favourite circuits but I've been really

struggling for grip all day, even as the track improved. I really haven't managed to find a set- up I like on the car yet. Whatever changes I make, they do not seem to have a positive reaction. So all I can say is that it's been a difficult day. Still, anything can happen in F1 – especially here – so we'll give everything to turn our situation around for the weekend."

Ricardo Zonta
"Everything went wrong for me today. The first day at Monaco is always difficult because it is dirty but we started with the wrong set-up and we completely lost the first session because of that. We spent the second session doing long runs to evaluate the consistency of the tyres but I still didn't have a good balance. Then when I went onto new tyres at the end of the session there were yellow flags and too much traffic. Still, there is more performance to come from the car."

Mike Gascoyne, Technical Director Chassis
"In many ways that was a typical first day in Monaco. The track was very dirty to begin with, then the track conditions evolved a lot throughout the two sessions. There was also a lot of traffic which makes conclusions difficult to draw. All the drivers completed their programmes with no real worries, they were just complaining generally of a lack of grip on the dirty circuit. We have to evaluate the data pretty carefully to make our tyre choice for the rest of the weekend. The cars look reasonably competitive so now we just have to make the right decisions for Saturday and Sunday."