Formula One news

Toyota reasonably happy

The Toyota team started the season with Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli in 13th and 14th place. Toyota's reserve driver, Ricardo Zonta, set the 11th time of the day and vovered a total of 51 laps.

"Generally, I am quite satisfied with the work we have achieved today," Toyota's new driver Ralf Schumacher said. "The car did not have any technical problems in either of the two sessions. We did a lot of work in preparation for Sunday's race and we are developing things in a positive direction. I am a little surprised because I think our performance is better than I expected but we still have a lot of work to do overnight to improve the car further. I am looking forward to qualifying already!"

Jarno Trulli said after free practice today: "Today, we spent time developing and improving the balance of the car for this track. We also carried out some important tyre testing for the race, but we honestly have to wait and see what happens tomorrow. There is a good chance that the weather will take a turn for the worse and, if it rains, we will be faced with completely different track conditions, which will make Saturday a bit of a gamble for everybody. Nevertheless it is nice to be back in Australia racing after the winter period."

Toyota's reserve driver Zonta said: "Use of the third car this weekend is very important to assess the Michelin tyres for the grand prix, especially with the introduction of the one-race tyre regulation. We did two long runs to see the effects of each of the compounds and I think it was a useful day. We now just have to look into the data to see which tyre type is best for our TF105 car here in Melbourne. As always, the Albert Park track was dusty and slippery in the first session and kept on improving as more rubber went down. We saw a lot of cars going off in both sessions and that made it difficult to get a clean lap."

Mike Gascoyne, Toyota's technical director said: "It is good to get the first day of running under our belt after the many weeks of pre-season testing. We have spent today simply getting used to the new regulations, especially concerning the tyres. Ricardo worked on tyre evaluation and long runs to compare both Michelin compounds. It is always difficult at Albert Park because the circuit changes so much throughout the weekend, but the data will tell us more ahead of tomorrow's sessions. Ralf and Jarno concentrated on improving the balance of the car as the track evolved and overall, I think we can be reasonably happy."

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