07/06/2004

Grand Prix of Canada - Preview

Cristiano da Matta - Race Drivers Car 16
"The Canadian Grand Prix is one of my favourites of the year. Everybody in Montreal really gets behind us and the enthusiasm of the fans is exactly what Formula 1 needs. The circuit is also fun to drive and technically demanding offering drivers and engineers a nice challenge. Engine power and stability under braking are two important areas of performance but the car also has to ride the kerbs well in order to set a good lap time. Our TF104 should be reasonably well suited to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve; our engine has proven itself to be one of the strongest and most reliable on the grid but we need to find the car balance to match. I doubt we can finish in the points without benefiting from misfortune ahead of us but we will continue to do our best and see what we can achieve at the end of the weekend."

Olivier Panis - Race Driver Car 17
"I really love Montreal. It's one of my favourite grand prix weekends because of its atmosphere. The people are so nice and because everyone stays in the city you can enjoy yourself. It's also one of the rare occasions during the year that I have time to relax for three or four days before the grand prix and I enjoy that because it gives me valuable time to train. I like Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and I have also had some good results there. Last year we prepared well for Montreal and the whole team performed quite strongly which resulted in me scoring my first point of 2003. At last week's Monza test we worked expressly on Canada and US preparations and we looked reasonably good running Canada downforce levels so we'll be trying to get on the scoreboard this weekend."

Ricardo Zonta - Third Driver Car 38
"I really like the Canadian Grand Prix weekend. It's a fun city and the track is very enjoyable to drive. There is a very long straight and the midfield is very tight and slow with a lot of narrow second and third gear corners and high kerbs. That variety makes it quite demanding to set up the car to have a good performance over the whole track. The track is usually dirty on Friday and quite slow and slippery. It improves a lot as the weekend goes on meaning you can run with a different balance and less downforce. That makes finding the base set-up even more difficult on Friday but at least you can still work on tyre characteristics which are always important."

Tsutomu Tomita - Team Principal
"We are in the middle of a very busy time in the F1 calendar with the next round of back-to-back races upon us already. We have barely had time to get over scoring our first points of the year in Monaco and the disappointment of the Nurburgring but our full efforts are now focussed in Montreal and Indianapolis. First up is the Canadian GP and whilst I do not expect us to make a huge leap forward compared to other races this season our target should again be to lay a solid foundation in Friday practice and try to build on that for the remainder of the weekend. We simply have to keep motivated and hope that Toyota reliability will result in a top eight finish on Sunday afternoon."