04/07/2004

Grand Prix of France - Race Round-Up

Cristiano da Matta (Car 16 Chassis TF104/04)
Classification: 14th + 1 lap (from race winner)
Grid: 11th
"I think the hot weather was detrimental to us in today's race particularly in the way our car was set up. The situation was the same for everyone but it is apparent from the final results that we suffered a lot more. I cannot really pinpoint a specific reason but the car was simply a lot slower compared to what we showed it could do on Friday and Saturday. The only thing that has been different today is the temperature but we have to look deeply into the data to see what caused such a big drop off in performance."

Olivier Panis (Car 17 Chassis TF104/03 T-car TF104/07)
Classification: 15th +2 laps (from race winner)
Grid: 14th
"I had a problem at the very start of the race when the clutch got stuck and the antistall was activated which is why I lost all the places. That was very painful for me and I am sure also for the team. There was one main problem today namely that we were not quick enough to fight with the cars in front of us. However disappointing today's results are for everyone at Toyota we must immediately look ahead to Silverstone to keep concentrated motivated and continue to do our best."

Tsutomu Tomita - Team Principal
"A very disappointing race performance given our level of competitiveness in qualifying. Olivier's race was compromised at the start when the antistall came in unexpectedly which dropped him to the back of the field and meant that he got caught up in traffic. Cristiano also got caught up in traffic in the first round of pit stops which lost him a lot of time. But overall the cars were not quick enough today. We have to investigate the reasons why our race pace was so far off the levels we achieved in practice and qualifying. On a positive note we got two cars to the finish so the reliability of the TF104 remains good and we look forward to the improvements of the car that are coming soon."