08/05/2004

Grand Prix of Spain - Qualifying Round-Up

Olivier Panis (Car 17 Chassis TF104/03)
Pre-Qualifying: 6th
Lap Time: 1m16.168s (+0.594s)
Qualifying: 7th
Lap Time: 1m16.313s (+1.291s)
Grid Position: 7th
"My lap today was very good and the whole team has done a great job all weekend to fine tune the car to find those crucial tenths-of-a-second. We are improving step-by-step and everyone is very focussed on the job we have to do. We know that this circuit suits our car well which we have shown in winter testing and this qualifying result offers us a strong opportunity to score some points in tomorrow's race."

Cristiano da Matta (Car 16 Chassis TF104/04)
Pre-Qualifying: 14th
Lap Time: 1m16.758s (+1.184s)
Qualifying: 11th
Lap Time: 1m17.038s (+2.016s)
Grid Position: 11th
"I am not particularly pleased with my qualifying lap today. I suffered from a lot more understeer on my second run and I am sure the track and weather conditions in general were a contributing factor. I tried to compensate for the understeer from inside the car but I pushed maybe too hard and overdrove the car a little bit. The bottom line is that we lost something from the first session to the second and we have to find out exactly what."

Mike Gascoyne - Technical Director Chassis
"I think it has been a reasonable Saturday and a positive qualifying session for Toyota. Olivier did an excellent job having not participated in the second session this morning due to an electrical problem. Cristiano suffered from understeer on his second run and did not achieve the full potential but overall I think we can be very happy with our grid positions and look forward to scoring points in tomorrow's race."