Toyota slowly improving in Monaco

Getting there ?
By Huw Alban (29/05/03)
May 29 2003

The Toyota drivers, Olivier Panis and Cristiano da Matta, appeared confident before this weekend that the team could shine in Monaco. If first practice is anything to go by, Toyota have got their work cut out for them this weekend...

Cristiano was one of the first drivers out on the circuit, with team mate Olivier following a few minutes later. Olivier scored an 8th fastest lap time on his first quick run, with Cristiano just behind in 10th. After a cumulative run of about 15 laps both men pitted for quite a long time, and hence had dropped down the order quite significantly.

On their second outing both drivers were quicker, posting personal best sector times in sector one, but strangely both were off the pace in the second and third. Olivier managed an improvement to 15th place, but Cristiano still languished in 18th.

On his 9th lap, Panis suddenly found some speed and jumped up to 10th but was still around 2 seconds slower than the leading pack. Cristian's times showed that he was losing out badly in sector two and unsurprisingly he pitted after only 4 laps.

The Toyota cars took to the track again after 35 minutes, having spent another lengthy period in the garages. da Matta immediately shaved 2 seconds off his lap time, but still stays last on the timesheets. Olivier continued to improve, posting personal best sector times lap after lap. He eventually regained 10th spot, but still appeared to struggle in the third and last sector of the track.

A final dash, with the entire pack on the track did little to improve the positions, with Panis now demoted to 13th. The Frenchman is losing around 0.5 a second in each sector in comparison to the top six cars. An improvement in one of those times by 0.5 a second would push the Toyota up into the top 10. Cristiano da Matta meanwhile finished the practice session in 20th and last place, his hope that his street racing CART experience would help all but gone. The Brazilian is significantly slower in all sectors of the track, but more so in sector two where he is losing over a second to the rest of the field.

This site predicts a top 10 and a back of the grid result in pre-qualifying for the team.