Malaysian Grand Prix – Race Round-Up
KUALA PAIR
Panasonic Toyota Racing will leave Kuala Lumpur with two
points following Jarno Trulli’s 7th place finish at
today’s Malaysian Grand Prix. After the mixed weather
of the previous few days, the race took place on a sunny day
of typically oppressive Malaysian heat. Track temperatures
topped 50 degrees Celsius, making for a hard day’s work
for all the drivers. Following yesterday’s strong performance
in qualifying, Jarno and team-mate Ralf Schumacher lined up
in 8th and 9th on the grid. Unfortunately both lost ground
at the start and from there it was a long, hard race for both
drivers. Jarno stayed in the top ten all race on his way to
the points. Ralf was less fortunate and lost further ground
when he suffered a slow puncture shortly after his first pit
stop and had to fuel until the end of the race, eventually
taking 15th place. After starting the year with two successive
points finishes, Toyota will now begin its journey to Bahrain
for the third round of the championship next Sunday, April
15.
Jarno Trulli (Car 12, Chassis TF107/04)
Race Classification 7th Gap: +70.132s Tyre Strategy: Hard
Soft Soft
Qualifying Classification 8th Time: 1m 36.902s (+1.859s in
Q3) Grid: 8th
“I’m happy to have come home in the points and
I’ve had a good weekend. I fought hard throughout, the
car worked well and we made the most of everything. The only
pity was the start which wasn’t so great and meant that
I ended up behind Fisichella for much of the race. I was quicker
than him in the first stint but at this circuit whoever’s
in front tends to stay there. Still, we kept up a good pace
and I was able to put in consistently quick laps until the
last ten laps when I couldn’t attack any harder due
to some minor technical problems. Nevertheless this is a good
result and I’d like to thank the team because we made
no mistakes throughout the weekend.”
Ralf Schumacher (Car 11, Chassis TF107/03)
Race Classification 15th Gap: +1 lap Tyre Strategy: Soft
Soft Hard
Qualifying Classification 9th Time: 1m 37.078s (+2.035s in
Q3) Grid: 9th
“It’s been a difficult weekend for me since the
start and today was one of those days when everything went
wrong. The car didn’t get away well and then I had to
avoid Jarno and I lost a few places. From then on I was stuck
in traffic for the first part of the race. Shortly after my
first pit stop I had a slow puncture and I needed to make
another unscheduled pit stop. That meant I was heavy on fuel
and the balance was not good. In general it was a tough race
for no points. But Bahrain is coming next and I hope to do
better there. Jarno’s result shows that we have the
pace to challenge with both cars.”
Tsutomu Tomita – Team Principal
“We have to be satisfied with this result because we
have made some progress here compared to Melbourne, especially
in terms of race pace. The weekend started quite well as we
again got both cars into the top ten. But the starts were
a problem for both cars so we lost a number of places and
both cars were blocked behind slower cars for the first stint,
losing over 10 seconds. Passing is extremely difficult here
as we saw throughout the field. But Jarno had a strong race
today in extreme conditions with very high temperatures. We
made a good decision to put him on the harder tyres for the
first stint but he couldn’t take advantage because of
the traffic. Ralf was less fortunate and soon after his first
pit stop he suffered a slow puncture. That’s why he
had to come into the pits at the worst possible time for his
strategy. He was due to have his last stint on the harder
tyre but because we had to fill him up until the end, that
put him out of contention. In the heat of Sepang it is not
good to run on a full tank of fuel but he still raced well
and brought the car home. We took 8th and 9th places in Melbourne
whereas here it was 7th and 15th but the actual performance
was better here. In Melbourne we were quite far away in terms
of pace. The good news here is that during Jarno’s second
and third stints his lap times were not far off the front-runners.
If we had made better starts he could have kept the Renaults
behind. So if we continue developing I hope that we can get
even closer to the front.”
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