21/06/2002

European Grand Prix - Free Practice

Panasonic Toyota Racing kicked off its "home" grand prix weekend at the Nurburgring today. Mika Salo and Allan McNish ended the two free practice sessions in 9th and 18th positions respectively with both drivers working on car set-up.

Mika Salo - Car No. 24

Position:	9th 1m33.715s 35 laps completed
Chassis:	TF102/07

"Not many problems today. We are trying to find a good set-up on the car. I am suffering from slight understeer and some other bits and pieces on the electronics side but nothing major. I really like the new circuit layout especially turns 2 and 3 - the circuit is quite tricky and more demanding."

Allan McNish - Car No. 25

Position:	18th 1m34.941s 38 laps completed
Chassis:	TF102/08

"I had a puncture at the start which meant changing tyres and doing our tyre comparison early on which was not an ideal time to do it. I had a bit of understeer throughout which lost a lot of time round the slow corners but we will work on that before tomorrow. The new first corner is very bumpy but the other corners themselves are quite nice but pretty difficult."

Gustav Brunner - Chief Designer
"All went reasonably well today with no major drama. We have been effectively learning a new circuit very similar to the old Nurburgring with a little ditch at the first corner. The team is working hard on the set-up but we had no problems with both of the cars running relatively trouble-free."

Weather:	Overcast with some light drizzle at times
Temperatures:	Air - Min 17°C Max 20°C Track - Min 18°C Max 25°C Average humidity 68%
T-car:	TF102/06 set up for Mika Salo