British Grand Prix - Free Practice Round-Up
Friday 4 July 2008
Today's Weather: Partly cloudy. Air 16-21°C, track 18-38°C
Toyota's Best British GP qualifying: 4th Jarno Trulli 2005
Toyota's Best British GP race result: 7th Cristiano da Matta
2003 Take Note: Timo Glock drove his TF108 alongside the Batmobile
yesterday as part of the team's promotion of The Dark Knight,
the latest Batman movie. The Dark Knight branding also features
on the TF108, the pit garage, drivers' overalls and team motorhome.
Timo Glock (Car 12, Chassis TF108-06)
Summary: His day's work was interrupted by a clutch problem
at Club early in the afternoon
P1 12th Best Lap Time: 1m 21.102s (+1.527s) Laps: 22
P2 14th Best Lap Time: 1m 21.472s (+1.483s) Laps: 18
"That was a difficult afternoon for both cars. The problem
with the clutch meant we missed out on most of the second
session. In the end the mechanics did a fantastic job to get
the car ready again for the last ten minutes and we did another
two runs. The car had felt okay this morning, just as it did
at the test last week. But we will now be playing catch-up
for the rest of the weekend. Still, after the team's results
at the last two races, we will push for further success on
Sunday."
Jarno Trulli (Car 11, Chassis TF108-05)
Summary: Suffered a late rear wing failure and went off into
the tyre wall at Stowe P1 15th Best Lap Time: 1m 21.265s (+1.690s)
Laps: 22 P2 22nd Best Lap Time: 1m 22.196s (+2.207s) Laps:
23 "Things clearly haven't gone well for us today. It's
difficult to say what happened, I just lost the rear wing
and went off. After that I was taken to the medical centre
for a routine check but I am fine and cleared to return to
the cockpit tomorrow. This means we have a busy weekend's
work ahead but we will push to make up ground. After our recent
results the team is really fired up. We can still try to get
both cars into the top ten and then aim for points."
Dieter Gass, Chief Engineer Race and Test
"This was obviously almost the worst case scenario for
us today as we missed most of the second session with both
cars. Timo had a clutch problem and the mechanics did a very
good job to fix that in time to get the car back out and give
him a chance to try the option tyres at the end of the session.
With Jarno we had a problem on the rear wing. He was running
with a new part so we reverted to the standard spec with Timo
and we will continue with that for the rest of the weekend.
Prior to that this morning was reasonable apart from the break
for the red flag and we went through most of what we had planned.
But the afternoon session was the important one and now we
have clearly lost a lot of running time. Luckily we were here
for the test last week so we have good data to base our decisions
on for tomorrow."
Panasonic Toyota Racing, featuring... The Dark Knight
The Batmobile is around 3m at its widest point, 4.5m long
and 1.5m high, weighing 2.5 tons. It is equipped with a 5.7-litre,
340hp engine which runs on regular unleaded fuel. The vehicle
has six wheels - two in the front, outfitted with sprint car
race tyres, and four at the back, which utilize monster truck
tyres. The Batmobile has no front axle which enables it to
make extremely tight turns. It can jump 1.2m to 1.8m and has
jumped a distance of 18m while a jet burner at the rear of
the vehicle aids with jumping and a landing hook can pull
the car to a halt. Backend flaps can also be engaged for making
quick stops. The Dark Knight is released in cinemas across
the UK on 25 July.
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