17/06/2003

Cristiano da Matta reflects on Canada

To say that my retirement from the Canadian Grand Prix was frustrating would be an understatement. My TF103 had performed so well over the course of the race and just when I thought I was home for my second points finish of the year something felt wrong with my suspension with only six laps to the chequered flag.

I was exiting the last chicane when the car suddenly snapped sideways. Initially I thought I'd made a mistake so I corrected the slide and got back on the throttle. But the car immediately did it again and I needed to turn the steering wheel quite a lot just to keep it in a straight line so I knew the problem was terminal. We'll have to get the car back to the factory for a proper check before jumping to any conclusions.

At least my team-mate Olivier Panis was able to get the world championship point that I lost so it was still a good race for the Panasonic Toyota Racing team. In fact I think we proved throughout the Montreal weekend that we have started to close the gap on our closest rivals although there is still quite a big gap between the top four teams and everyone else. But I think we're near the top of the chasing pack.

We had various new bits on the TF103 in Canada including a new-spec RVX03 engine which was a good step forward and helped us on the long straights. But it was also our best race of the year from a working perspective because we proved that we are maturing as a team. The weather conditions were awful for the opening two days of practice which made all the running we did very difficult but we reacted well to the changing track conditions.

Saturday was a good example of this because I had a crash in the second 45-minute practice session. I had been having trouble with my traction control system throughout the first morning session and at the exit of Turn 7 I floored the throttle - as I usually did at that point on the track - but the traction control didn't work as I expected and I spun. I was in only third gear at the time so the impact wasn't big but the damage to the car was quite extensive - too bad to run in the remainder of the session.

As a result I had to switch to the spare car which was set up for me. By the qualifying hour I had had just five laps of dry running behind me from the entire weekend yet the set-up on the car that we chose was great. Perhaps I could have driven my lap a bit quicker but I hadn't even had a chance to find my braking points so I was pleased with the time I did and to take ninth place on the grid - one better than my starting position in Monaco two weeks ago. With Olivier in seventh place we achieved our best combined qualifying result ever which was a great boost for everyone and there was a real buzz to our pit for the remainder of the weekend.

So despite losing out on eighth place at the end I left Montreal in an upbeat mood. The car is getting better and the window in which it works is getting wider. It was good over kerbs for the first time ever and while we still need to improve its stability under braking we are definitely moving the package in the right direction.

From Montreal I flew straight to Jerez in southern Spain for testing where I am running for two days this week. It is quite a similar track to the Nurburgring so we can do some useful tyre and set-up testing for that next race where I think we can look to score more points at our home grand prix - just half-an-hour from the factory in Cologne.