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Germany: The Overcast Battle
By Nick Sparkes
August 1 2005
Panasonic Toyota Racing needed to field a good result for another home Grand Prix in Germany, the twelfth round of the Formula One World Championship. But could the team finally overcome their struggling race pace? The Forecast shows a level of improvement, but not enough for a clear sky.

Hockenheim Report  – The Overcast Battle

 

Lacking the X Factor

 

Throughout Friday and Saturday’s Free Practice sessions an overwhelming pattern emerged, we lacked the X Factor. Although Friday specialist Ricardo Zonta put in a sizzling pace to take a second and a fifth, race drivers Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher were left struggling around the mid-field, outpaced by their Japanese rival B.A.R Honda and even Red Bull Racing. Even their newly upgraded RVX-05 engine couldn’t get all three cars within the top 10, leaving a lot of work ahead of them come Saturday morning.

 

Saturday saw an almost carbon copy of Friday’s Practice times with both Jarno and Ralf still fishing around the edges of the top 10. In fact the two Panasonic Toyota Racing cars would walk into qualifying with Jarno tenth and Ralf twelfth fastest, not the sort of pace expected at their home Grand Prix.

 

Like I said earlier, their form was lacking the X Factor, the sort of aid which would allow the team to challenge at the very front, have a car with excellent road holding, outstanding straight line speed and a package that would work from a single Qualifying lap right up to a 60 lap race. I look at McLaren, whose latest car has got the X Factor, fastest almost everywhere it goes although lacks reliability which will ultimately be its down fall. Toyota need to stop cursing around the mid field and turning out the sort of laps which will put it well into the top 10, and not outside of it.

 

Clean but not fast

 

Qualifying would be a similar story; the car just wasn’t quick enough to make that extra tenth which would more it 3 or 4 places up the grid. Ralf Schumacher was the first of the two Toyota’s to play ball, and although a clean and tidy lap got him to the end, which would ultimately, be twelfth on the grid, it was outclassed by both Red Bull Racing’s. Jarno Trulli would soon follow, and although complained of a lack of brakes early on, only managed to finish three places ahead of his teammate in ninth. Fifth to twelfth was covered by just under a second, showing how compact the grid was, a compact grid, which Toyota was right in the middle of.

 

I was somewhat disappointed by the result, we have normally shown a strong Qualifying form in recent weekends, and here we have just suffered, losing out by only tenths of a second. Toyota pinned their Qualifying result on race stratergy, which would hopefully bring both of our cars into the mix come the end of the race. Time would endlessly tell.

 

Drama of Plenty

 

This season Toyota has had a pretty clean opening lap, with only one accident being Ralf Schumacher at the European Grand Prix. Sadly race day would recreate that sort of drama. On the opening corner Jarno Trulli picked up a puncture after being forced wide by Mark Webbers Williams, with the next few corners seeing the Italian running wide in an effort to keep the car on track. Ralf Schumacher was also right in the mix, trying to move up the field after his lonely grid slot. I see the opening lap as ‘one of those things’. So many times have we seen drivers being conservative during the first couple of laps, with the new rules regarding tyres. This has lead to a train of faster cars being held up by slower ones, and finally I see drivers understanding this isn’t the way to compete in a race. So they are finally going hell for leather into the first corner, which makes the first couple of corners very exciting although you don’t expect one of your own drivers to be walking wounded.

 

A point’s finish rested on the shoulders of Ralf Schumacher, who drove a stellar race to end up sixth. Although after his first pit stop out braking himself into turn two lead to him losing a position to Giancarlo Fisichella’s Renault, Ralf had an excellent afternoon racing against many of the front running teams like Renault and Ferrari. For Jarno Trulli, getting stuck behind Takuma Sato for a number of laps in the early stages slowed his pace, and then getting a drive through penalty for not allowing the leaders through whilst fighting with Nick Heidfeld, pretty much ended any chance of a points finish that afternoon. In fact Jarno never made it to the chequered flag, as his car stopped on the final lap due to a problem with the engines pneumatic pressure which had also forced him to make a couple of addition pit stops. In theory it was a bad day at the office for Jarno Trulli, which was contrasted with Ralf Schumacher’s fight to sixth position.

 

Seeing Blue

 

Jarno Trulli’s race ending drive through penalty caused a lot of controversy, he was fighting another person for race position (Nick Heidfeld), yet had a faster car behind. Once Jarno paced Nick Heidfeld he moved straight out of the way, yet moving past more than 3 Blue Flags earned him his drive through. The Blue Flag system has been criticized in recent races by the faster cars for not doing the job its there to do, and whilst we still have the rule, a faster car should have priority, careless whether your fighting another car or out there on your own. Jarno and the team made a mistake, as the rule is there for a reason, in the same way they got penalised for leaving the grid too late before the start of the European Grand Prix some months back.

 

Championship battle all over?

 

The championship battle has been hotting up in recent races, in theory its only Kimi Raikkonen vs. Fernando Alonso. But Kimi’s teammate Juan Pablo Montoya has other ideas and feels he can also challenge for the championship. But a costly mistake in Qualifying, spinning his McLaren on the final corner sent Montoya to the back, and Kimi left to defend his championship fight all on his own. Then whilst Kimi looks all set for a crushing victory over his rival Alonso, his McLaren slows, stops and retires, another problem costs Kimi another race victory. The crowd were robbed of the real winner, as Kimi had driven like a champion all weekend and then for something not his fault to stop him closing the gap to Alonso. Therefore Kimi Raikkonen is my driver of the day, should have won the race, was taken out by something not his fault.

 

No time to stop for Toyota

 

After another handful of points, the podium return still eludes the team. After another troublesome Grand Prix the team must look ahead to the next race in Hungary, which is just under a week away. With Ralf Schumacher showing excellent race craft, and Jarno Trulli outstanding Qualifying laps, they need to merge both of these together to get the best out of the weekend and to have both cars in the points, maybe even a return to the podium. Hopefully the outlook is brighter.

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