08/03/2003

Australian GP Second Qualifying Report
Panasonic Toyota Racing will begin the new Grand Prix season with high hopes of a point-scoring race in Melbourne after Olivier Panis achieved the team's best-ever start position fifth place in his first GP weekend for the team.

Panis lapped his Toyota TF103 in 1m28.288s while rookie team-mate Cristiano da Matta will start his first Grand Prix from 16th place after a lap in 1m29.538s.

"I am really happy about the performance of the car and itfs nice to be up the front end of the grid in my race debut for the team h Panis said. g I think we did a good job this morning to compare the Michelin tyres and I think we made a good choice. Now we have to wait until tomorrow to see how we go in the race. Everybody worked really hard and at the end of the day this was a positive qualifying so I would like to thank every single member of the team both here in Melbourne and also back at the factory in Cologne."

Da Matta explained: "We had a problem with the clutch in the session before which meant I couldn't do the warm-up. That was not the perfect situation but the team did a fantastic job to fix the problem in time for my qualifying lap. I was expecting a clear run for my single lap so I was surprised to see a car right in front of me!"

The Brazilian added: "Psychologically it slows you down a little bit. Anyway both Olivier and myself were on different strategies and I still think we can challenge for points tomorrow."

The first race of the new season saw the introduction of F1's new one-shot qualifying procedure with drivers having just one flying lap to set their grid times. With the finish of the warm-up session just 15 minutes before qualifying starts both teams and drivers are put under even greater pressure.

A crucial change to the 2003 qualifying regulations however bans refuelling between qualifying and race meaning that cars are no longer in lightweight low-fuel optimum qualifying specification. The effect of that is to bring the tactical element of the race forward to Saturday afternoon with the result that nobody quite knows for sure what anyone else is doing. Despite that fifth place is a highly encouraging start for Panasonic Toyota Racing.

Team Principal Ove Andersson commented: "It's nice to be so far up the grid for a change. I wouldnft like to say how we compare to the others. Only tomorrow will we see for the first time what strategies other people have been running."

Despite the rules and format shake-up it was still Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro on top with five time world champion Michael Schumacher lapping in 1m27.173s to pip his team mate Rubens Barrichello (1m27.418s) to pole position the 51st of his career. Juan Pablo Montoya (1m28.101s) was third fastest in the first of the BMW Williams F1 entries while Heinz-Harald Frentzen was fourth quickest for Sauber Petronas. Behind Panis Jacques Villeneuve completed the top six for Lucky Strike BAR Honda.