Good first day for Toyota

Following its trip to North America for the grands prix in Montreal and Indianapolis, Panasonic Toyota Racing today returned to action in Europe. The team has a three-day test scheduled this week at the UK circuit of Silverstone.

The track will play host to the British Grand Prix in less than three weeks so this test gives teams the chance to complete some useful mileage at the Northamptonshire venue. For Toyota Ralf Schumacher was driving today, working on different systems but concentrating on set-up work for next month’s race. He also carried out some qualifying runs and even recorded the fastest time of the day. The team will continue testing at Silverstone tomorrow with Jarno Trulli at the wheel.

Ralf Schumacher – Chassis TF107/03
Best lap time: 1m 22.794s
Position: 1st
Total laps: 71
Total distance: 365.0km
“In general it was a successful day and we made it through everything that we had planned. We were concentrating on set-up work, primarily targeted at the British Grand Prix. We also looked at some different aero settings and did some qualifying runs. The conditions were very good, particularly in the morning, although the wind picked up in the afternoon. We had one stoppage after lunch while we changed some suspension settings but overall things went well.”

Gerd Pfeiffer, Test Team Manager “We are spending the week focusing on set-up work for next month’s British Grand Prix and today was a positive way to start. This morning went quite well, we did some tyre comparisons and we went through different set-ups. We also did work with a few different aerodynamics settings and we carried out some qualifying runs. All in all we made it through 51 laps before lunch. In preparation for the afternoon session we carried out some changes to the suspension settings and we spent the rest of the day doing some more comparisons. From tomorrow we will have Jarno driving and we hope to make further progress.”