13/09/2002

Italian Grand Prix - Free Practice

A day of mixed fortunes for the Panasonic Toyota Racing team in Monza today as Mika Salo and Allan McNish worked on car set-up and tyre comparisons for the Italian Grand Prix. Salo ended a trouble-free session in 6th position but McNish's running was negated by a suspected gearbox problem leaving the Scot in 18th.

Mika Salo - Car No. 24

Position:	6th 1m23.925s 38 laps completed
Chassis:	TF102/07

"We are again at a circuit suited relatively well to our car. We can use the engine to good effect and the low downforce requirements are working to our advantage. We tested here last week and it looked quite promising for the race. We had no major problems in today's two practice sessions other than some small issues with handling. The car generally seems to be fine and I am quite happy."

Allan McNish - Car No. 25

Position:	18th 1m25.546s 23 laps completed
Chassis:	TF102/08

"We had a difficult day with a big imbalance in the car from the start. We did some changes but that didn't cure the problem. In the second sessionwe tried a launch start but had a gearbox-related problem and the guys did a really good job changing the rear end. You can't afford to lose any time on Friday let alone effectively two sessions. It is a bad start to the weekend but hopefully we can recover the car we had in testing last week and it won't be so much of an issue."

Ange Pasquali - Team Manager
"A reasonable start to the weekend. Mika's car seems to be fine apart from some balance problems. There was a problem on Allan's car in the second session which we suspect is gearbox-related. The mechanics did a superb job changing the rear of the car in such a quick time but we have to look deeper into the problem now. Generally the cars are showing good speed we just need some fine tuning on the set-up which we will work on tomorrow morning."

Weather:	Overcast but dry with some sunny spells.
Temperatures:	Air - Min 18°C Max 21°C Track - Min 18°C Max 27°C Average humidity - 47%
T-car:	TF102/06 set up for Mika Salo