Canada: Toyota slowly moving forward
By Nick Sparkes
June 11 2005
Panasonic Toyota Racing revved up for the Canadian Grand Prix with a second place finish for Friday tester Ricardo Zonta, followed on with Ralf Schumacher breaking into the top six during Saturday morning. The team are confident of a return to the podium this weekend, which is promising news.
As usual Ricardo Zonta was the fastest Toyota driver throughout Friday practice. The Brazilian test driver putting in faultless runs to carry his Toyota up into second spot at the end of the day. Ricardo focused on tyres for this weekend, the subject still of much debate after Kimi Raikkonen’s Michelin failer on the final lap of the European Grand Prix. Ricardo was as ever happy with his days work. "We had a good day and we were competitive throughout both sessions so we are confident. My car felt well balanced, even if it was a struggle because the track changed so much during the two sessions. Because it uses some public roads, it is always dirty to start with, making the first few laps tricky. This year they have also resurfaced the track so it was especially slippery in the morning, but it improved with every run. All in all, a positive start to the weekend."
Behind, Toyota racer drivers Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli focused on set-up work for the up and coming Grand Prix, the drivers ending up in 9th and 11th places respectively. Almost all the drivers commented on the newly resurfaced track, and the Toyota drivers were very much the same: “The newly resurfaced track here meant that it was a little bit slippery in the beginning but it improved throughout the day. Looking ahead to Sunday I would expect us to be aiming for another good points finish."
Jarno Trulli, Toyota’s only ever podium finisher, was cautious of the weekends predictions: "This was a normal Friday of testing for us, working on tyre choice and set-up. The new surface meant we struggled a bit for grip, but that was the same for everybody. The track also changed a lot during the course of the two sessions as more rubber went down. So it's difficult to say where we are at this point but we'll do our best to earn more points."