12/07/2009
NEWS STORY
Panasonic Toyota Racing suffered another frustrating day at the Nürburgring as the German Grand Prix ended with the team narrowly missing out on the points. Following yesterday's weather-affected qualifying, the race was always likely to be difficult and the team planned its strategy with that in mind. Both drivers started on heavy fuel loads and the super soft Bridgestone Potenza tyres, with Timo Glock lining up from the pit lane as part of his strategy. Jarno Trulli fought hard for position on the opening lap but was hit by another car, forcing him to pit for a new front wing on lap two. He returned to the track in 19th and was lapping on the pace of the top-six cars before becoming stuck in traffic and pitting for medium tyres after a third of the race. Timo, as the only car on a one-stop strategy, battled valiantly on his heavy fuel load and by half distance he was in the top 10. He made the latest first pit stop of all to switch to medium tyres and continued his charge for the points. He closed within half a second of the top eight but narrowly missed out after making up 11 places during the race. Jarno took advantage of clear air in the closing stages to record the second-fastest race lap but his first-lap incident had by then denied him any chance of points.
Jarno Trulli: "The race was over for me at the first corner. There were several cars fighting for position but I suddenly saw another car go past me and jump over my front wing because there was no space. I couldn't see that part of my wing but I could feel there was something wrong so I came in and the team changed it. After that the car felt good but unfortunately as soon as I caught up with the field I was always stuck in traffic and couldn't do anything. When I had a clear track ahead of me later in the race I put in some quick laps and was second fastest overall but it was too late."
Timo Glock: "In general I am reasonably satisfied with my performance today because I started from the pit lane and finished ninth on a track where overtaking is very difficult. We had a good strategy after what happened in qualifying yesterday but unfortunately I had some traffic in the first stint which cost me time. I only had around four laps without traffic all day but when I had a clear track I was quick. If it wasn't for the traffic I would have had a better chance at scoring points. On the last stint I was quicker than (Heikki) Kovalainen but I just couldn't get past. I pushed really hard and tried to overtake twice but I couldn't manage. But we need to qualify higher so we can fight at the front in the race and we will work on this for the next Grand Prix."
Tadashi Yamashina - Team Principal: "Unfortunately we couldn't make the most of the race today, despite having the potential in the car to get a much better result. The race was decided for us in qualifying; starting from where we did made it extremely difficult to finish in the points even though the car had quite good performance, as you can see from Jarno's second-fastest race lap. Now we have to work towards the Hungarian Grand Prix, where we will fight to achieve a significantly better result. The Hungaroring is a track which could suit our cars, and we have a good record there historically, so we will do our very best to get back among the leading teams."