Germany: Respectable start to the weekend
By Nick Sparkes
July 23 2005
Panasonic Toyota Racing were left fighting around the mid-field during both Friday’s and Saturday’s Practice sessions for the up and coming Grand Prix. Ricardo Zonta pumped in over 60 laps at the Hockenheim circuit whilst Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher made use of the upgraded RVX-05 engine.
Friday morning saw all three of Panasonic Toyota Racing drivers get to work straight away with Ricardo Zonta the lead Toyota driver in both sessions. Both Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher concentrated on tyre and set-up work for Sunday’s Grand Prix, with each driver rounding out both sessions around the mid-field. Zonta would end the day with a second and fifth, whilst race drivers Jarno Trulli would end up with a twelfth and ninth with Ralf Schumacher finishing tenth and eleventh. All three drivers reported no problems with their cars, as they continue to be one of the most reliable in the field.
Jarno remained positive after Friday’s sessions: “That was a normal Friday of tyre and set-up work and it’s still too early to say how well we can perform here. The tyre choice is still open and could be affected by the weather so we’ll have to analyse the data carefully tonight. The engine has a good step forward here which should help us to improve our pace and hopefully to score more points.”
Whilst Ralf was happy to be racing in front of his home crowd: “It’s always nice to come to Hockenheim because I enjoy the atmosphere here. Today was a normal day of work on tyres and set-up in preparation for the rest of the weekend. We’ve been struggling a bit in the last few races, but the package still has the potential to make it to a good points finish so we’ll try and do that again on Sunday.”
Whereas Zonta feels there is still more to come from his Toyota: “Because of the threat of rain for this afternoon we had to put in a more intense session of work than usual this morning, including a couple of medium-long runs. In the end we had enough time to put in our usual long runs anyway, but when I put on new tyres at the end to do a quick lap I hit traffic on the last sector so I could have gone quicker.”