Malaysian Grand Prix - Race Round-Up
Sunday 19 March 2006
Panasonic Toyota Racing capped off a promising weekend with
its first point from 2006 in today's Malaysian Grand Prix
under the sweltering skies of Sepang. After showing strong
potential in qualifying, yesterday's engine failure demoted
Ralf Schumacher to the back of the grid but he battled strongly
on a three-stop strategy on his way to 8th place. Jarno Trulli
suffered a broken diffuser early on and thus endured a difficult
afternoon's work. Nevertheless he ended up only one place
further back, just outside the points. The Toyotas have shown
improved pace this weekend but there is still a lot of work
to do. Both Ralf and Jarno are scheduled to test at France's
Paul Ricard circuit next week as the team aims to make further
gains on its early season performance.
KUALA FLAIR
Ralf Schumacher started at the back but a lightning start
helped propel him to 8th place in today's Malaysian Grand
Prix.
Ralf Schumacher (Car 7, Chassis TF106/05)
Race Classification: 8th
Gap: +1m21.288s (from race winner)
Qualifying Classification: 10th
Time: 1m34.586s (+1.059s in Session 2)
Grid: 22nd
"That was a very interesting race and it is obviously
good news to have scored our first point of the year so we
are very happy with today's result. We certainly could not
have expected that with a three-stop race from the back of
the grid. We are also happy that our times showed that we
are again competitive. But it was a difficult race today and
of course that does not mean that we have solved all our problems.
We have the cooler weather of Melbourne next so we will be
testing in Paul Ricard next week to be as prepared as possible
for that. We hope to be able to keep up this level of pace
at the coming races. We have to keep fighting and try to push
for the podium again as soon as possible."
SWELTER FATE
Jarno Trulli narrowly missed the points after a hard afternoon's
work with a broken diffuser around the humid Sepang.
Jarno Trulli (Car 8, Chassis TF106/04)
Race Classification: 9th
Gap: +1 lap (from race winner)
Qualifying Classification: 13th
Time: 1m34.702s (+1.175s in Session 2)
Grid: 9th
"I'm delighted that we scored a point with Ralf today.
We should probably have finished with both cars in the points
but it was really bad luck for me today. My afternoon got
off to an unfortunate start when I suffered a broken diffuser
when someone hit me from behind, just like in Hungary last
year. That destroyed the rear of the car and that cost me
today because I could have scored points. From then on I was
suffering a mixture of oversteer and understeer and it was
a big struggle so I just concentrated on driving as quickly
as possible. We tried to adjust the car at the pit stops but
obviously with the diffuser broken we could do very little.
It's good that our pace has shown an improvement since Bahrain
and we've gained some important data. We know we will succeed
if we keep our heads down and work hard."
MAKING A POINT
Toyota scored its first point of 2006 but is realistic about
the amount of work that lies ahead over the next few races.
Tsutomu Tomita – Team Principal
"That was obviously a much better performance over the
whole weekend and a strong performance in the race thanks
to a significant improvement in the combination of our car
and our Bridgestone tyres. That gives the whole team a very
high motivation which is the most important thing that we
could gain here. Of course we are delighted that Ralf scored
our first point of the year. Ralf was originally scheduled
to do two stops but because of high pneumatic consumption
we had to switch him to a three-stop strategy. So to score
points from last on the grid is especially impressive due
to that fact. Jarno struggled with a diffuser that was damaged
early on, which meant he really struggled for race pace but
he still finished 9th so those are very encouraging results.
The team deserved that result for all their hard work, but
now we must start pushing to get on the podium. We will go
to Paul Ricard next week to test further development of our
combination with the Bridgestone tyres in preparation for
the next race and then the start of the European season. We
will keep pushing hard as we seek further success."
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