20/03/2004

Grand Prix of Malaysia - Qualifying Report

Cristiano da Matta has achieved a top 10 qualifying position for the Panasonic Toyota Racing team amid the heat and humidity in Malaysia scene of round 2 of this season's Formula 1 World Championship.

Da Matta had a difficult morning of free practice including a spin in Turn 14 which remained slippery throughout the day in track temperatures of more than 50 degrees centigrade.

"I made a couple of mistakes in the morning locking a brake on what I know would have been a very quick lap Da Matta explained, and then I found understeer on my first run in qualifying. We made a couple of changes in the short break and the car handled better and I was able to drive closer to its potential when it mattered. You could see by the fact that two drivers spun off and failed to complete their lap just how easy it was to overdo things."

The Brazilian lapped in 1m34.917s some 1.8s slower than pole position man Michael Schumacher. Team mate Olivier Panis meanwhile will start the race four places further back on the grid 14th after a lap in 1m35.617s which was slower than he had managed on his first run.

"I'm very disappointed the Frenchman explained. I did a 1m34.9s lap quite easily in morning practice and then a 1m35.2s on my first run but then wasn't happy with the car's balance. We made a change in the break which made the handling dramatically different. I managed sector one okay but I had a lot of oversteer and it got progressively throughout the lap."

Behind Michael Schumacher Australian Mark Webber (1m33.715s) managed to split the two Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro cars to achieve the best ever qualifying performance for the Jaguar Racing team. Rubens Barrichello (1m33.756s) was the only other driver to lap below 1m34s while three different chassis-engine combinations filled the remaining top six places. Juan Montoya (1m34.054s) lines up fourth for the BMW Williams F1 Team with Kimi Raikkonen (1m34.164s) fifth for West McLaren Mercedes and Jenson Button (1m34.221s) sixth for Lucky Strike BAR Honda.

Panasonic Toyota Racing's Technical Director Chassis Mike Gascoyne commented: "We are a little disappointed because we thought that a 1m34.5s lap was possible but having said that Cristiano did very well after his difficult two days. Olivier's oversteering car meant that he had to work very hard but the big positive for the team is that we have closed the gap to those in front by a large margin. Getting the car to the finish is a priority here and we are confident. Hopefully we can score some points tomorrow."

Just for the record tomorrow's race will be the Panasonic Toyota Racing team's third Malaysian Grand Prix and coincidentally the third time that it has one of its cars in tenth place on the starting grid.... how is that for consistency!