09/05/2004

Grand Prix of Spain Race Report

What had looked like a promising Spanish Grand Prix for Panasonic Toyota Racing ended in disappointment with Cristiano da Matta classified 13th and Olivier Panis retiring from the 66-lap race at half distance.

Frenchman Panis had given the team its best qualifying performance of the season when he lined up seventh but his race was ruined by a Drive Through penalty for speeding in the pitlane at his second pit stop.

Panis ran seventh until his first refuelling stop but dropped three places to cars running slightly longer first stints.

"My start was pretty good but I soon realised that I did not have a lot of grip he explained. Then coming in for my second refuelling stop I had a problem with the pit lane speed limiter. I'm not sure whether it was my mistake or a fault with the limiter but if was me I apologise! After serving my penalty I experienced a hydraulic problem which cost me my gears and steering."

Da Matta said: "Barcelona is the kind of circuit which gives a pretty accurate reflection of car performance and the reality is that we did not have the race pace to challenge for points as we had hoped after qualifying. The car was quite slow in the first two stints and although the performance was better later on I lost much of the new-tyre advantage by having to move off-line while being lapped. Without that perhaps I could have beaten Mark Webber's Jaguar which finished 5s ahead of me."

Panasonic Toyota Racing's Technical Director Chassis Mike Gascoyne explained: "After yesterday's excellent qualifying performance we knew that we would face a stiffer task maintaining the race pace and so it proved. On the first set of tyres we had problems with high tyre pressures and then Olivier incurred his Drive Through penalty. But by then we could already see from the data that he was losing hydraulic pressure. Operationally the team did a good job but Cristiano's result clearly demonstrates that we need to find more race pace."

Michael Schumacher retained his 100% 2004 victory record for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro scoring his 75th career F1 win in the process. Rubens Barrichello helped the team to its third 1-2 of the season ahead of the Mild Seven Renault F1 Team cars of Jarno Trulli and home hero Fernando Alonso. Takuma Sato's BAR Honda was fifth ahead of Ralf Schumacher's BMW Williams Giancarlo Fisichella's Sauber Petronas and Jenson Button in the second BAR-Honda.

The series now moves to the glamour of Monte Carlo in two weeks time for round six of the championship. Panasonic Toyota Racing will be looking to prepare itself for the rigours of Monaco at Circuit Paul Ricard in France next week. Ricardo Zonta will be at the wheel of the TF104 from Tuesday to Friday whilst the two race drivers share testing duties Panis driving on Tuesday and Wednesday before handing over to Da Matta for the remainder of the session.