30/05/2004

Grand Prix of Europe - Race Report

The European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring round 7 of this year's FIA Formula 1 World Championship finished without Panasonic Toyota Racing adding to the points scored with both cars in Monte Carlo just a week ago.

For poor Cristiano da Matta the race was over by the first corner. The Brazilian who had qualified 11th said: "I made a good start but then going into Turn 1 it looked like the two Williams drivers had a collision. Ralf Schumacher's car was knocked towards the outside of the corner. I was already moving to try to avoid what I could see developing but was simply left with nowhere to go. Ralf's car hit mine and although it's frustrating to retire through no fault of your own that's racing. You just have to focus on the next race and get on with the programme."

For team mate Olivier Panis the race was a tough one the second TF104 chassis finishing a lap down in 11th place.

"I made a fantastic start and managed to gain a couple of places the Frenchman said, I was running in eighth position but I realised quite early on that the tyre performance was dropping off quite a lot and I could not keep pace with the group in front of me. It's disappointing for the team with just about everyone from Cologne visiting us at some stage during the weekend but I realised early on that it was going to be a tough afternoon and so it proved."

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro scored its fourth 1-2 result in the seven races so far this year with Michael Schumacher winning the race by 17.9s from team mate Rubens Barrichello. Jenson Button finished third for Lucky Strike BAR Honda ahead of Mild Seven Renault F1 Team drivers Jarno Trulli and Fernando Alonso. Giancarlo Fisichella secured a top six finish for Sauber Petronas ahead of Jaguar Racing's Mark Webber and Juan Pablo Montoya recovering from the incident that caused Da Matta's retirement.

Technical Director Chassis Mike Gascoyne explained: "We were on the softer of the Michelin tyres available to us and as Olivier says there was quite a bit of drop-off. We weren't able to match the consistency of some of the cars that adopted two-stop race strategies and so we ended up in 11th place. There was nothing that Cristiano could have done he was just unfortunate and so we will just have to put this race down to experience."

The team now has a three-day test at Silverstone with Cristiano and a four-day test at Monza with a combination of Olivier Ricardo Zonta and Ryan Briscoe before June's back-to-back North American races in Montreal and Indianapolis. The Montreal circuit should be more favourable to the team with its emphasis on engine power and good stability under braking two good areas for Panasonic Toyota Racing.