Six is not enough….not for Toyota!

The Panasonic Toyota team racing includes the Michelin-teams who couldn't race last Grand Prix due tire problems. Toyota came to France with big confidence for a good French Grand Prix.

It all started on a usual Friday. Well… there was a change within the team. Olivier Panis drove the third car. Normally, Ricardo Zonta drives the third car on Friday, but as a token of graduate for his great effort in Toyota, they had decided that Panis was going to drive during his home Grand Prix.

He did a very good job by taking his car in the top ten in both sessions; 7th in the first practice and, even better, 6th in the second practice.

Fortunately Panis wasn’t the only one who ended both sessions in the top ten. Ralf took place 9 in both sessions. Jarno only drove one lap in the first practice and thereby didn't set a time, he did in the second practice - he ended his session as 8th.

All sessions in the top ten, this gave everybody more confidence to drive a nice qualification. Well that’s good!

As you know, Ralf had to miss the “US Petit Prix” due his health reasons. And because of that he had to go out to qualify first. A big disadvantage!! Although he had made the best of it; he unfortunately made a small mistake into the Adelaide hairpin but after that he drove a very clean lap without any mistakes. He set a time of 1m 15.771s (+1.359s) which was good for the 12^th fastest time. And that was good - he had that disadvantage of starting first but apart from that he gained quite some places.

Another ‘surprise’ was waiting for them in the qualification when Jarno went out qualifying. And it was exciting! Jarno started as 14^th, Renault driver Fernando Alonso had the provisional pole. Could Jarno rob the provisional pole away?

Unfortunately not…. he just got 0.109s short on Fernando. There were six more drivers to go. That included the Minardi’s and Jordan’s and no offence…but…you can’t really imagine them getting a faster time than Jarno. So he was at least 4^th in qualifying. The two remaining drivers were the Ferrari’s. They had the possibility to take Jarno’s 2^nd position! First out was Rubens Barichello, in the first and second sector he was 0.100s faster, but in the last sector he lost a lot of time and ended in P6. Then it’s Michael Schumacher’s turn. He was 0.2s faster than our man, second sector 0.1s slower and in the final sector he fortunately was slower too. This meant that Jarno got his fifth front-row! As I said before, it was quite a surprise and this means something good for the race!

Eight jet fighters, with the colors of France, flew across the circuit minutes before the ‘Grand Prix de France’ started. It was nice, but then…it was time to drive the 70 laps of Magny-Cours!

After the formation lap everybody formed up on the grid again and it was waiting for the red lights to go on and off again. Both Ralf and Jarno made a good start – neither of them got overtaken.

Right after the start leader Fernando Alonso drove away from Jarno. I found it quite remarkable that Trulli’s pace wasn’t really where it should be. You could see that it was quite difficult for him to keep Michael Schumacher behind his back. But he did it until the first pit stop. Jarno ended up on the fifth place with Takuma Sato right behind him, but he again, managed to keep Sato there.  Sato got so frustrated that he tried to overtake Trulli in the Adelaide hairpin. I can tell you…that it was without any success for the BAR driver – he took an off-road excursion and fell back to the tenth place! After that Jarno had a sort of calm race but certainly not easy! He was teased by a lack of stability and it only got worse and worse! Fortunately he lasted it throughout the race and was helped to the 5^th place by problems by Juan-Pablo Montoya and Gian Carlo Fisichella.

Ralf did a good race by finishing 7^th from 12^th on the grid. I know it’s normal for Ralf to race so good or even better if he isn’t unlucky. But unfortunately he had the same problems Jarno had. His first pit stop was during lap 15 from position 12, which meant he was on a three-stop strategy. He was on that strategy until mid-race, when the men at the Toyota pit wall decided to change it into a two-stop strategy. And it really helped. As the end of the race came in sight, Ralf was 9^th, but just as Jarno, gained two places – Montoya got a problem with the hydraulics and Jacques Villeneuve made a mistake and went off.

I think Ralf drove a bit of an invisible race, because I haven’t seen him one time on the TV. It absolutely does not mean that he didn’t drive well, because he did!

These weren’t really the results I expected for the French Grand Prix but I have to say I can’t complain. I mean we have both drivers in the points and, with that, left Williams behind us and got back to the 4^th place in the constructors’ championship. That’s not all; Ralf went from the 8^th place to the 7^th place with 20 points and Jarno went to 4^th place from the 5^th in the drivers’ championship.

Both drivers in the top ten and Toyota in the top five!

Now that the French Grand Prix is over Toyota is heading for a Grand Prix that suites Panasonic Toyota Racing well. And we certainly can expect a good race at next week’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone!

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