12/09/2008
NEWS STORY
Today's Weather: Wet with heavy thunderstorms and torrential rain in the morning. A brighter afternoon session led to the track drying out later on. Air 19-25°C, track 14-30°C Toyota's Best Italian GP qualifying: 6th Jarno Trulli 2005 Toyota's Best Italian GP race result: 5th Jarno Trulli 2005 Take Note: Panasonic Toyota Racing's third driver Kamui Kobayashi will celebrate his 22nd birthday tomorrow by competing in the GP2 race here at Monza
Timo Glock: "It was difficult today. In the wet conditions this morning we were okay but in the dry the car just is not working the tyre hard enough. So the car isout ofthe right set-up window to have confidence. It feels different from corner to corner and it is not easy to feel what it is doing. The conditions were tricky in Spa last week and they are likely to be similar here. Thatwill make it another difficult weekend for us because we have struggled in cooler conditions, particularly with hard tyres and low downforce. Still, I have never raced here in wet conditions before so that could be quite interesting for us."
Jarno Trulli: "That was not a good Friday because the track was always changing and we didn't learn much out of it. In general we have a competitive car but we had a difficult weekend in Spa and this could be another hard race. The cool conditions make warming up the tyres a problem and so far this year we have been more competitive at high downforce levels than at low downforce. So it's not the best type of circuit for us but we will obviously push for the best result we can. For sure this is not the ideal place to have a wet race but obviously we will have to deal with it. We just hope we can improve over the next two days."
Dieter Gass, Chief Engineer Race and Test: "Today was an unfortunate day for us. After the problems we encountered in last week's race in Spa we came here with an interesting programme. But because of the weather we weren't really able to do any significant work on that. The circuit took a long time to dry and we only really had three runs in stable conditions late on. So it will be very hard to draw any conclusions. Both drivers were struggling for grip, which is normal on a completely green track here. Having to use the harder tyre compounds doesn't help the situation, especially for us, but we've got to get on with it. The forecast is for rain for the rest of the weekend and we were performing better here in the wet conditions this morning so we will do our best to bring a competitive package together."