Better next time!

The team fortunately didn’t left the Nürburgring without anything; they could manage to take the 8th place and one point with them.

Unlike last week, Toyota had a good start of the weekend. I can say that there actually weren’t any problems for any of the drivers.

Our Friday driver, Ricardo Zonta, immediately showed Toyota was in their element here at the Nürburgring. He ended both free practice sessions in the top three!

Ralf Schumacher completed 28 laps in total and drove to the 10^th time in both sessions. He hadn’t much to complain about the car by one thing; the set-up wasn’t how he preferred it yet but that was going to be all right with some overnight work. The tires weren’t a problem at all so they confirmed that Friday evening.

For Jarno Trulli, it was a good day; he didn’t have any (little) problems and, just like Ralf, finished in session one and two at the same place; he got the 10^th time.

Ralf and Jarno’s times weren’t very, as you could say ‘wow!’…but as you know… practice times don’t mean very much!

Saturday broke… starting at 09:00 o’clock with the third free practice. Jarno got one place lower than on Friday, the 12^th time. In the second practice he gained 8^th places, which meant the 5^th time for him.

Ralf started the day with a 9^th place and gained one place in the second free practice.

There, again, were no problems so…high hopes gathered, for the qualification and the race, at Toyota!

13.00 o’clock local time and the qualification, who has by the way changed (again!!!) into the qualification-format of 2004’s season, was about to begin. Jarno ended 10^th and Ralf 6^th at the Monaco Grand Prix so Jarno was first to qualify.

Before Jarno started his ‘flying lap’ Giancarlo Fisichella held provincial pole as long as it took!.... The Toyota driver was already half a second quicker than Fisichella in the first sector. In the second sector three-tenths and in the third and final sector he built it up to eight-tenths quicker than Giancarlo and by that took the provincial pole timing 1.30.700.

After Felipe Massa, Rubens Barichello and brother Michael Schumacher it was Ralf’s turn. Neither of those three could get to the time of Jarno, could Ralf do it then?...

He started two-tenths slower than his teammate and got the time of Fernando Alonso. In the second sector he lost three-tenths to Jarno and finally took P3 after Rubens Barichello.

In the end Jarno drove to the second row on the grid as 4^th, behind 3^rd place Mark Webber, 2^nd place Kimi Raikkonen and the man who got his first pole of his F1-career here at his home grand Prix, Nick Heidfeld. The Toyota-driver was happy with his lap, didn’t have any set-up problems and happily looked forward to the race.

Ralf, unlike, Jarno wasn’t too pleased with his lap. Especially because he knew that he could do much better than the 8^th place on the grid. He explained a lack of grip and quite some understeer. He of course(!!) didn’t gave up hope and aimed for a good race the next day.

Everybody is standing and getting ready, for the race, on the grid of the Nürburgring. When the warming-up lap was about to begin, it immediately didn’t start how we would like it, here, with Toyota. The mechanics had some problems with starting Jarno’s engine, whereby they stood by Jarno longer than aloud.

Unfortunately for us the stewards, that why, decided to penalize Jarno with a drive-through penalty. After his penalty he came in 9^th and with that his chances for a podium were as good as gone!

It wasn’t a very good beginning for Ralf either; he gets involved by a little accident in the first corner. He bumped into Fernando Alonso and lost his front-wing. Again an unplanned pitstop for the team which made the chance for a podium or even points nearly impossible! After Ralf’s pitstop he came to the last place, closing the gap with the Minardi’s and the Jordan’s.

18 laps after the start Jarno went into the pits for a scheduled(!) pitstop from P9 and drops back to the 12^th place. The only thing he had to do now was driving his race and trying to gain as much positions as possible, because…you never know what can happen in a Formula One Race!!

Ralf did a good job by overtaking five drivers and lost only two places after his second pitstop. He was placed behind Jacques Villeneuve at P16.

Toyota knew from that point It wasn’t going to be an easy race, but they never gave up and they absolutely didn’t.

Couple of laps later there happened something that never happened before in this year’s season to Toyota; a Toyota-driver retires from the race by a spin (which we actually couldn’t afford)!! The unlucky Toyota-driver was Ralf Schumacher. He was very close behind Takuma Sato, when he lost the grip…got teased by much understeer and spun of the circuit. Unfortunately the race was done…for Ralf. This meant that there was only one Toyota left to try to grab at least one point. Two pitstops and a drive-through penalty later Jarno was tenth…but not for long; the tire of Felipe Massa’s Sauber got torn apart and slashed is own front-wing off, and almost fell on Tiago Monteiro. Trulli overtook him, gained a position and became 9^th.

The team realized that this was going to be the highest position they cold grab this race because the gap between Jarno and Montoya (who was in front of him)  was just too big!.......Until(I wish I could go on like this!) the last lap when this Grand Prix’ leader, Kimi Raikkonen  crashed of the course with a big impact! His right-front tire was so worn off that it vibrated, he could get along with it a few laps but than one, last lap was too much! Everybody shuffled one place forward and again the winner was going to be Fernando Alonso, with Saturday’s pole sitter Nick Heidfeld and third Rubens Barichello (does this mean Ferrari is coming back in the game???)

It was very unfortunate for Raikkonen and Mclaren, but it was good news for Toyota. They gained one place and there by grabbed a point!!!

Although this disappointing race, there was still some happiness within the team. Jarno grabbed one point and tied up with McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen.

And the gap between Mclaren and Toyota didn’t grow with 11 points as almost happened, but with 2 points.

With eleven days left for the Grand Prix of Canada the Panasonic Toyota Racing team is working as hard as possible to get some good results; points and a good chance for (a) podium(s)!

Just because the Grand Prix of Europe wasn’t a good one…doesn’t mean that we can’t repeat the great results we made earlier in this season!

Get ready for the Grand Prix of Canada!