05/03/2004

Grand Prix of Australia - Free Practice Report

Amid a great sense of anticipation in Melbourne Australia the curtain finally went up on the 2004 Grand Prix season today March 5.

For the second successive season F1 has undergone changes to the format of the race weekend. Chief among these is the requirement that teams must complete the meeting using just one engine per race car. Those that finished last season outside the top four in the constructors championship are permitted to use a third car on Friday.

For Panasonic Toyota Racing the new format provides an opportunity to use the talents of third driver Ricardo Zonta to full effect. Obviously it makes sense for Zonta to do much of the vital tyre comparison work while the race drivers save 'mileage life' on engines that will race on Sunday.

Consequently it was Zonta who did the bulk of the Friday work 42 laps as against 28 for Olivier Panis and 22 for Cristiano da Matta. The three drivers ended the day in 14th (Zonta) 16th (Da Matta) and 18th (Panis) places.

"I was quite pleased with the sessions and very happy to be back in action at a race meeting even if it is only on a Friday!" said Brazilian Zonta. "We got quite a lot of running done even if a small electrical glitch hampered me a little in the morning."

Panis added that he also encountered some first day difficulties: "We were unable to complete many laps and I am not yet content with the set-up of the TF104 for the Albert Park track. We will sit down together this afternoon to work on it and find some improvements before tomorrow's two practice sessions."

Da Matta said: "There's not a lot to add because I only completed 20 or so laps in both sessions. In the first one the track was not very good and like most other people we waited a while before going out. I had a spin due to some braking problems. In the second session I stopped because of a puncture but on a positive note Ricardo did some valuable tyre work for us."

Panasonic Toyota Racing's newly-arrived technical director chassis Mike Gascoyne explained: "Ricardo said that in the first session he was relearning the track after a few years of not driving here and track conditions were initially very slippery so he didn't really push. The race drivers sat out the first session and did just a few set-up runs.

"It was a slightly difficult second session for all three drivers. Ricardo worked on tyre comparisons and long runs and for us the tyre choice is pretty clear. Both race drivers had small problems -- Cristiano was interrupted by his puncture and Olivier had lots of traffic when he was doing his runs on new tyres. Overall the sessions played out pretty much as expected."

Six-time world champion Michael Schumacher (1m24.718s) wasted no time in demonstrating that he has lost none of his appetite and Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro none of its potency - he was under last year's pole position time on his second flying lap! Team mate Rubens Barrichello (1m24.826s) finished the day second quickest ahead of Jarno Trulli (1m25.757s) for the Mild Seven Renault F1 Team Jenson Button's BAR-Honda (1m25.786s) Fernando Alonso in the second Renault (1m25.853s) and Ralf Schumacher (1m25.882s) in the first of the BMW Williams F1 Team cars.