By Site Staff
January 8 2003

As is the norm at F1 car launches, the media are hungry to know what the drivers think of their new charge. In Toyota's case the drivers are completely new to the team as well as the car, and despite media critisism over a new line-up for 2003 Panis and da Matta are as keen as mustard. "I have been incredibly impressed with what I have found at Panasonic Toyota Racing," commented Panis at todays Paul Ricard launch. "All the basic ingredients are in place for the team to make a big jump up the grid in 2003, but for me to comment further on how much progress we can make, I need to test the new car. Even then we will have to wait until Melbourne to discover where we are in relation to our competitors."

2002 CART champion, Cristiano da Matta, has been labelled 'the start of an exciting chapter with Toyota'. "I achieved one dream by winning the CART championship in 2002," he said. "Now I have the fresh challenge of Formula 1. I don't want to make any predictions just yet, but driving in F1 is fantastic and, while F1 cars are similar to what I'm used to in the slow-speed corners, they are much faster in the quick corners."