Formula 1 News - April 2005
Toyota

23 April: San Marino Grand Prix - Saturday Qualifying Report - Toyota

Panasonic Toyota Racing will look to put both cars into the points at Sunday's San Marino Grand Prix after Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher took 6th and 12th places respectively on the provisional grid. After a haul of 25 points from the last two races the team stands in second place in the constructors' championship. Now both drivers are in good shape to add to that total tomorrow afternoon.

Sixth Sense
Jarno Trulli maintained his strong qualifying record from 2005 by scoring a fine 6th place in first qualifying for tomorrow's San Marino Grand Prix. The Italian, who lies in second place in the world championship, will now look to keep up his run of points scoring finishes tomorrow.

Jarno Trulli (Car 16, Chassis TF105/02)
First Practice Classification: 17th Lap Time: 1m 25.730s (+4.374s) Laps: 3
Second Practice Classification: 14th Lap Time: 1m 21.105s (+1.047s) Laps: 14
First Qualifying Classification: 6th Lap Time: 1m 20.492s (+0.606s) Laps: 3

"That was a pretty good qualifying session for me, and I managed to put together a clear lap to keep up my record of top six finishes from first qualifying this year. Obviously we knew this would be a tougher weekend than the last two races, but we are still in a strong position on a very tight grid. Now we hope to capitalize on that tomorrow so that we can add a few more points to my season's tally so far."

Data in the diary
Ralf Schumacher remains confident of a points finish in tomorrow's San Marino Grand Prix after he finished 12th in today's first qualifying session. The German will now look to make up some places during the course of tomorrow's second qualifying and the race, just as he managed at the last race in Bahrain.

Ralf Schumacher (Car 17, Chassis TF105/04)
First Practice Classification: 8th Lap Time: 1m 24.156s (+2.800s) Laps:4
Second Practice Classification: 11th Lap Time: 1m 20.802s (+0.744s) Laps: 11
First Qualifying Classification: 12th Lap Time: 1m 20.994s (+1.108s) Laps: 3

"That was a very tight qualifying session. It was obviously not a perfect lap from me, and it ended up slightly slower than I would have liked. I took it slightly easy in the first sector, but apart from that it was a pretty clear lap with no real mistakes so we will have to take a look at the data to try and see where we lost time. Nonetheless I think our car performs well whatever the fuel load so I'm looking forward to the race and confident that we can push and make the points. That would be a good way to keep up our strong form so far this year."

Miked Up
Mike Gascoyne is upbeat after a tight qualifying session that leaves both Toyota cars with a good chance of points in tomorrow's San Marino Grand Prix.

Mike Gascoyne - Technical Director Chassis "Overall that was a solid performance. It was a very tight qualifying session and both drivers did a reasonable job with the car. We don't seem to have quite the pace that we had in the last couple of races due to the nature of the circuit. But the car is still very competitive and it was a good qualifying performance from Jarno. Ralf was a little less happy with the car, which is a shame because it was very tight and one tenth would have picked up several places. Looking ahead to second qualifying we obviously have to look at strategy because a good choice could pick up several positions on such a tight grid. But so far the weekend has gone pretty much as we expected and now we have to look to get two cars into the points."

2005 San Marino Grand Prix - Main Page
2005 San Marino Grand Prix - Team and Driver Saturday Qualifying Reports Page

Latest Formula 1 News from Toyota:

More news from Toyota F1

Back To Top

Web NewsOnF1.com NewsOnF1.net (Forum)