Toyota F1 2003 Spanish Grand Prix Flashback


Da Matta
By Toyota F1 Media
May 5 2004

The 2003 Spanish Grand Prix resulted in Panasonic Toyota Racing opening its points account after Cristiano da Matta stormed to 6th place, picking up three championship points. This flashback gives you an insight into this race as we wait to the 2004 event.

  
Spanish 2003 Flashback
 
The 2003 Spanish Grand Prix resulted in Panasonic Toyota Racing opening its points account after Cristiano da Matta stormed to 6th place, picking up three championship points. Together with the German GP in Hockenheim, the Spanish result equalled the best of Cristiano's 2003 season.

Da Matta & Panis in the 2003 Spanish GPToyota had a competitive package at the Circuit de Catalunya, a circuit that suited its TF103 race car. This was demonstrated when Panis and Da Matta ended the first free practice session in 5th and 9th spots respectively. The drivers worked on the usual Friday task list of car set-up work and Michelin tyre evaluation. Both drivers reported some handling difficulties on their TF103s, despite the encouraging lap times. Panis completed just thirteen laps but set the fifth best time of 1m17.220s. Da Matta managed 26 tours of the 4.73-km track to finish 9th in 1m18.101s.

This solid foundation was transformed into highly encouraging results in Friday qualifying, which saw both TF103s in the top 6 with Da Matta 4th and Panis 6th after clean, competitive flying laps.

The duo was 5th (Panis, 1m18.985s, 34 laps) and 11th (Da Matta, 1m19.342s, 44 laps) in Saturday's free practice after a generally trouble-free 90 minutes. Work was concentrated on Michelin tyre evaluation and race preparations.

The team were able to celebrate another top ten qualifying result on Saturday afternoon after Olivier Panis qualified his TF103 in 6th place. Cristiano da Matta ran a different technical set-up to his French team-mate, but struggled with oversteer on his sole flying lap to line up 13th on the grid. After scoring a fifth place qualifying result at the 2003 season-opener in Melbourne, it was the team's second top six grid slot of the year to date.

Race day topped off a weekend to remember as Panasonic Toyota Racing picked up the first of its 2003 world championship points. Starting from 13th on the grid, Cristiano da Matta drove a strong race to claim 6th position and three points, making full use of a three-stop strategy. After qualifying in 6th yesterday, his French team-mate Olivier Panis was also running in a strong points-scoring position before a suspected gearbox problem ended his race 24 laps from the finish.

What the drivers said:

Cristiano da Matta: "I am happy with this result today for myself and for the whole team. This was one of the first clean races we have had this season and overall it was a generally trouble-free weekend for me. It feels good to score points for the first time - the first of many I hope! We really deserved fifth place, but I just couldn't get past Ralf at the end. My brake pedal was going a bit too long from midway through the race, so I couldn't push hard enough. Barcelona is a track where we knew we would have a good performance and we have been highly competitive all weekend, but I hope we can also find this level at other tracks. I hope these three points are just the beginning."

Olivier Panis: "Obviously I am very annoyed. We have been so strong here all weekend and in the race we were looking good on a two-stop strategy and up into the points again. We think the retirement was caused by a gearbox problem, but this needs to be investigated and verified. I am so disappointed - we really need to stop losing points like this, although I am naturally pleased for Cristiano and the team scoring 6th place."