10/07/2005
NEWS STORY
Panasonic Toyota Racing has secured yet another points finish at today's British Grand Prix after Ralf Schumacher took a solitary point for 8th place. On an unusually hot Sunday at Silverstone, Jarno Trulli followed Ralf home in 9th place after a hard day's work for both drivers. The pair were on different strategies and battling it out during a hard middle stint to see who would exit the second pit stop first, a race won by Ralf this time. The result still keeps Toyota in 4th place in the constructors' championship with a total of 54 points. The sell-out audience for the British Grand Prix also included Arsenal FC's head coach Arsène Wenger, a guest of Toyota for the day.
Ralf Schumacher secured his sixth points finish of the season after a hard day's work around Silverstone. The German's 8th place finish leaves him 9th in the championship on 23 points.
Ralf Schumacher: "After a tough race like that I have to be happy with a point today, although I wish it could have been more. I made a tyre choice which I hoped would have worked to my advantage, but it meant that I was struggling for grip and sliding around. That made it hard to keep the car on the road and to maintain consistent lap times. I also lost a position at the start, so that is why I am especially happy with my result, bringing home one point. Still, it's obvious that we have a lot of work to do and I hope we have a better performance at Hockenheim in a fortnight's time."
After a scorching day at Silverstone, Jarno Trulli narrowly missed out on the points, finishing in 9th place just 1.6 seconds behind Ralf. Jarno nonetheless goes away in equal 4th place in the world championship with 31 points.
Jarno Trulli: "It's very frustrating to miss out on the points after a day that was as hard as that. I made a slow getaway and that meant I lost positions at the first corner. Then we had grip problems during the early part of the race just as we had in France last week. That eventually got better and better with each stint as we went through the race. But we made a mistake with our strategy and I lost positions because I was always in traffic or being held up by blue flags. I did my very best and went as quick as I could. Now we have to hope for a better race next time."
Panasonic Toyota Racing had a frustrating day around Silverstone after a promising start to the weekend. But Ralf Schumacher's solitary point was enough to keep hold of 4th place in the constructors' championship.
Tsutomu Tomita – Team Principal: "That was a tough race for just one point for the team. We did well to get two cars home to the finish, but the race was spoiled by our pace in the early stages when we struggled and just lost too much time. That is a similar problem to the one we faced in last week's French Grand Prix. So we have to analyse why that is happening and try to understand it, because certainly in the second half of the race we were much more competitive. The cars were on slightly different strategies in the second stint with Ralf stopping later so they were both pushing very hard to gain the position. That was the time that Jarno had to back off for blue flags for the leaders and that unfortunately decided the battle in favour of Ralf. Now we must move on to the next race and hope for an improvement."