20/07/2002

French Grand Prix - Qualifying

Panasonic Toyota Racing will occupy the 9th row of the grid for tomorrow's French Grand Prix. The team has carried out extensive work on car set-up since the start of the weekend but the TF102's performance has been hindered by a lack of traction - essential at Magny-Cours. This considered Salo and McNish did a good job ending the one hour session in 16th and 17th positions.

Mika Salo - Car No. 24

Position:	16th 1m13.837s 12/12 laps completed
Chassis:	TF102/07

"Obviously I am not happy about my position but I think that we got the best out of the car as it is at the moment. I have been having traction problems with the car since the first session yesterday which have been improving but we have not yet been able to find a complete solution."

Allan McNish - Car No. 25

Position:	17th 1m13.949s 12/12 laps completed
Chassis:	TF102/08

"A disappointing session. I honestly thought we would be a little bit more competitive in qualifying trim but overall that was about the limit of where the car has been all weekend. On a more positive note we worked mainly on race set-up in the free practice sessions so I think we will have a better handling car for the race tomorrow."

Ange Pasquali - Team Manager
"Clearly it was not our best qualifying result of this year but in terms of the work done on the car since yesterday we have made a big progression. It was an interesting session for us but there is still some work to do. We have been able to save one set of new tyres for tomorrow which I hope will pay off somehow."

Weather:	Blue skies and hot sunshine throughout the day
Temperatures:	Air - Min 18°C Max 29°C Track - Min 20°C Max 48°C Average humidity 35%
T-car:	TF102/06 set up for Mika Salo

Review
Mika had incidents in both free practice sessions on Friday but ended the day in 7th place whilst traffic affected Allan McNish's running - the Scot finishing in 11th. This morning Mika and Allan were 17th and 18th respectively completing 55 laps between them working on optimising car set-up.