British Grand Prix – Race Round-Up
DOUBLE FAULT
Panasonic Toyota Racing will leave Britain empty-handed following
a desperately disappointing day’s work at today’s
British Grand Prix. On another sunny day at Silverstone, Ralf
Schumacher and Jarno Trulli lined up in 6th and 10th places
on the grid respectively. Unfortunately both cars made poor
getaways from the dirty side of the grid and lost ground on
the first lap, with Ralf dropping back to 8th place. He nonetheless
pushed hard during the first stint but shortly after his first
pit stop on lap 22 he suffered a wheel fixation problem and
he was forced to retire. Jarno faced a tough afternoon’s
work after struggling with balance and grip issues all weekend.
He battled as far as lap 43 before the team called him in
to investigate the problem. Following this disappointment
the team will now regroup at Spa-Francorchamps for this week’s
test. Then Toyota will look for a better result when it returns
to racing action at the Nürburgring for the European
Grand Prix in a fortnight.
Jarno Trulli (Car 12, Chassis TF107/06)
Race Classification DNF Tyre Strategy: Hard Hard Medium
Qualifying Classification 10th Time: 1m 21.240s (+1.243s
in Q3) Grid: 10th
“This has been a difficult weekend for me and today
was no exception. All weekend I’ve struggled with very
high tyre wear compared to my team-mate. It started badly
on Friday and I was unable to find a way to improve my car
all weekend. So I was expecting a tough race but as it turned
out the race was even worse so we need to look into the reason
for that. The car was very nervous throughout and in the end
the team brought me in because there was something wrong on
the car which we will have to investigate. The positive thing
is that Ralf was able to push and be consistent. So we must
now forget this one and look forward to the next race because
every grand prix is a different story. But for me it was a
weekend to forget.”
Ralf Schumacher (Car 11, Chassis TF107/05)
Race Classification DNF Tyre Strategy: Hard Medium
Qualifying Classification 6th Time: 1m 20.516s (+0.519s in
Q3) Grid: 6th
“That was a disappointing day. We retired when I had
a problem with our front left wheel although we still have
to investigate the exact cause. I felt the failure as I came
into the complex and I had to retire straightaway. It is a
pity because we looked strong all weekend and we were confident
of a good result today. Unfortunately we had lost some positions
at the start as well so we will need to look into that to
understand why that happened. So it’s clear that the
outcome is not satisfactory but the positive thing is that
we were back in the top ten with both cars in qualifying.
We had quite good lap times today and we were able to stay
with the BMWs and the Renaults while I was in the race. So
we have showed a decent performance and I’m reasonably
happy with that. The fact that we were able to fight higher
up will give the team an extra push as we prepare for the
next race at the Nürburgring.”
Tadashi Yamashina – Team Principal
“After yesterday’s strong qualifying performance
we were expecting a better result in today’s race. But
today the starts were everything. Our starts were simply not
good enough so we must investigate again and make our best
efforts to increase our pace off the line. After he dropped
places Ralf was in traffic but at least his pace was reasonably
competitive. Then he was forced to retire with a wheel fixation
problem at the front left. Then Jarno ran into balance and
grip issues which we will also have to investigate. We tried
everything to understand what was going on and we pitted him
early for his second stop to check the tyres and change the
nose. But in the end it was not possible to change things
and we called him in because his car was massively unbalanced
with no grip. Of course we must now analyse everything that
has gone wrong today and work hard to develop our cars further.
But this was just not our race.”
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