Jarno: Toyota Better Than Expected

By Luke Marc Carlile-Stanton
March 22 2007

Testing painted a bad picture for the Toyota F1 team, but the teams Italian ace Jarno Trulli says that their performance at the 2007 season opener at Melbourne in Australia was better than they were expecting.

Despite suffering a troubled race with the balance of the car, his brakes and traffic Jarno acknolwedges that the TF107 competitive than testing had indicated, while reliability appeared to be better after problems in the winter. Team mate Ralf Schumacher had problems in the race suffering excessive pneumatic comsumption, the German's car stopping meters after the chequred flag, finsihing in 8th place 7 seconds ahead of Jarno who came home 9th despite their problems.

Friday's practice sessions didn't promise too much, both cars at the wrong end of the second half of the time sheets but on Saturday, things came good, both Ralf and Jarno making it through to the third and final part of Qualifying, qualifying 8th and 9th. In an interview with American F1 TV Broadcaster 'Speed TV' he told their website that it was a weekend where things went better than expected and he acknowledged the TF107's potential.

“Overall, it was better than expected,” Jarno Said. “We could definitely have done slightly better, especially with me. The start of the race was pretty bad with some engine controls or electronics which went wrong, so I lost a few positions. Only thanks to some good overtaking maneuvers, I made it back.'' He continued;

“Then the first stint of the race I was held up by Ralf, who was slower than me. That cost me quite a lot. I was very unlucky with Fisichella, he got right between Ralf and me when he came out of the pits, and this cost me my race, because he screwed me up with the strategy. Giancarlo was slow because he was heavy on fuel, Ralf pulled away, and the people behind me with a different strategy just got me. And on top of that I also had a lot of brake problems, which really didn’t make my race easy.”

Toyota heads to the Malaysian and Bahrain Grand Prix's with some optimisim after the Melbourne show and also Malaysia and Bahrain was the scene of the teams first podium finishes taken by Jarno in 2005. Whether the TF107 has enough potential to repeat the feat awaits to be seen. But come what may, Melborune was better than expected and chins are up after a depressing Winter. 2007 will be a rollercoaster be sure of that!