28/02/2002

Greetings from Mika

So here we are at our first Grand Prix! The mood in Melbourne is very upbeat at the moment. The freight and the entire race team arrived safely last weekend and we're now making the final preparations prior to the first practice session tomorrow. I cannot wait to get started.

I love street circuits and I love Australia so there is no better way to start the year than on a street circuit in Australia! Mind you this time last week I thought that I was never going to get here.

Following an unbelievable amount of PR work for Toyota in Tokyo I had planned to fly to Melbourne last Sunday. But I went down with a really bad cold and thought it better to rest over the weekend before getting on an aeroplane again. It was definitely the right decision because I now feel great.

Those few extra days in Japan gave me the opportunity to have some quality time with my family. We did what families do: we went for walks we ate in our favourite restaurant called Seryna and we let Noriko's family enjoy having our six-month-old son Max around.

On leaving for Japan both myself and Noriko were a bit nervous prior to take-off thinking that Max would disturb his neighbours for the entire 12-hour flight from Helsinki but he didn't. He was a really good boy - just like his Dad!

As for the Australian Grand Prix it will certainly be an emotional occasion for me. It's been a long hard slog to get the team here. If world championship points were awarded for effort we'd win our first race! That won't happen of course and it's difficult to predict where we'll be. If we finish the race then that would already be a great result.

The TF102 is improving all the time. We have done more than 6 000 kilometres of running since the testing ban was lifted in January and while we could have done with a week's more running so could everyone.
Here's to a great weekend. See you all again soon.

Mika