San Marino: Putting the troubles behind them

By Nick Sparkes
April 20 2006

After a return to the podium in Australia, and a successful weeks testing, Toyota has good reason to expect a double points finish this weekend. The team seem to have now overcome their tyre problem, which will be tested to the maximum this weekend as it’s expected to be the coolest weekend so far.

Dieter Gass, Toyota’s Chief Engineer Race and Test, is glad to be back in Europe, but notes the problematic weather which has dogged their 2006 season. "Now we are back in Europe we will probably face cooler temperatures at Imola than we have so far this year. That would have been a concern for us after the difficulties we had in Bahrain”. But, the team is now confident that their difficulties after behind them after two weeks of testing prior to this weekends Grand Prix. “Given the work we have done with the car set-up combined with the development work from Bridgestone on their new generation of compounds designed to work at lower temperatures, we can now be confident that those problems are under control. We showed a much stronger performance in Melbourne and we have to look to continue that development. We have had two tests since Australia which have given us a chance to look at some of the main issues, including the damper set-up we will need to ride the Imola kerbs.”

Finally, predictions for this weekend? “Our car has shown it is capable of qualifying in the top ten so we have to look to do that and score points."