Formula One news

Da Matta hopes for better fortune

Toyota's Cristiano da Matta feeling confident after team mate Olivier Panis finished fifth in the US Grand Prix. Da Matta was caught up in the first lap melée.

"What we achieved at Indianapolis was a genuine result," da Matta said. "We had by far the best performance from our car all year and we were right on the pace. The track suited our car quite well and we were competitive in all the practice sessions. Qualifying was not great for me and I didn't put in a good lap but I knew I had a good car for the race. It's just a shame that I couldn't make anything out of it because I was hit on the first lap."

"I'm still enjoying the season, but at the same time it's frustrating not to be where we expected," added da Matta whose contract is up at the end of the season. "Obviously we didn't start the season as well as we imagined and we were hoping for much better results than we have right now. But you always enjoy driving a race car. Perhaps it's a lot less fun than it could be if we were scoring points and fighting for the positions we were expecting, but I still love driving the car. I enjoy going to the race weekends and I enjoy working on the car in testing trying to find new things and solutions to problems."

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