Hungarian Grand Prix - Race Round-Up
DECLINE IN BUDA
Panasonic Toyota Racing will leave Budapest with three points
courtesy of Ralf Schumacher following today's incident-packed
Hungarian Grand Prix. After the cool conditions of the first
two days, the Hungarian weather had one more surprise for
the teams on Sunday, with heavy showers ensuring that much
of the race took place on a wet track. Toyota's drivers Ralf
Schumacher and Jarno Trulli started from P6 and P8 on the
grid respectively with a heavy fuel load for a two-stop race.
But both drivers were short of grip at the start and they
lost a total of six places each on the first lap. From there
it was always going to be a long, hard afternoon's work around
the Hungaroring. The task was made even harder when the safety
car was brought out just after both had made their first pit
stops on lap 25, leaving both a lap down. The two drivers
were the first to switch to dry tyres for the final stint
and Ralf did well to bring the car home in 6th place. Jarno
was less fortunate, suffering an engine failure five laps
from home. There is no testing in August so the teams will
now take a mini-break before the next race at Turkey's Istanbul
Park in three weeks.
Ralf Schumacher (Car 7, Chassis TF106/10B)
Race Classification: 6th
Gap: +1 lap (from race winner)
Qualifying Classification: 7th
Time: 1m20.759s (+1.160s in Q3)
Grid: 6th
"That was a very turbulent race and after everything
that happened we are happy to take away three points. A lot
of things went badly, but the rain was especially difficult
at the start of the race. The track was really wet and we
just could not warm up the tyres. It was like running on smooth
ice and we were extremely slow so it was pretty hard work.
As the track got drier we improved our pace and the Bridgestone
standard wets worked extremely well even in dry conditions.
At the moment when we decided to change to dry tyres it might
have been quite risky. But it was a risk we had to take and
it worked. On dry tyres we were quick and I was able to make
up ground and take 6th place."
Jarno Trulli (Car 8, Chassis TF106/08B)
Race Classification: DNF
Qualifying Classification: 9th
Time: 1m21.123s (+1.533s in Q3)
Grid: 8th
"This has simply been a chaotic weekend from start to
finish. During the first lap I was hit by a car on the infield
and I lost several positions. Then during the first stint
we had a major struggle for grip which got worse as the rain
increased. Then when I could have done with some luck from
the safety car I pitted a lap too soon and I was stuck behind
it a lap down. I had been starting to make up ground but I
was then stuck behind a lot of cars that were slower than
me. That lost me a few seconds a lap and with the strategy
I had it ruined my race. As the track got drier and the temperatures
went up, the car became quicker and we were doing pretty well
in the last stint on dry tyres until we suffered our engine
failure. We should have finished in the points but in the
end everything that could have gone wrong did. We will hope
for a more predictable weekend in Turkey and a better result."
Tsutomu Tomita – Team Principal
"First of all we would like to congratulate Honda on
their first win since their return to Formula 1. Here at Toyota
our weekend started well and we expected a good performance
in the race so I am very dissatisfied with this result. In
the end it was full of action and incident and events did
not play into our hands today. We had taken the risk of rain
into account when we decided on our set-up yesterday so we
were not too worried. But we made a poor start and we had
poor grip in the wet conditions of the early stages when our
lap times were worse than those of our tyre competitors. Then
the safety car came at the worst possible time for us and
we lost a lap compared to cars which we could have passed
later in the race. So that lost us the chance to score more
points. As the race went on and as it became drier over the
last two stints our pace was very good. Ralf did well to finish
in 6th place but Jarno was less fortunate and suffered a late
engine failure. We are confident we will improve and we will
continue pushing to the end of the season."
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