12.10.2008

Behind the scenes

Jarno Trulli’s crash helmet departed from its usual distinctive silver design at Fuji as the Italian wore the competition-winning design of 11-year-old Japanese schoolgirl Yōu Terano. It was personally selected by Jarno from a wide entry in a competition run by team title sponsor, Panasonic. It featured an image of Mount Fuji, the dramatic peak visible from the circuit. Off the circuit, the team hosted a Sushi evening in the paddock, playing host to rival team members including Honda’s Ross Brawn and Nick Fry. Jarno and Timo were even persuaded to forsake their usual knives and forks in favour of chopsticks!

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Felipe Massa closed to within five points of championship leader Lewis Hamilton as both title contenders were hit by penalties in the early stages of the race. Hamilton, who had taken a 12th career pole position, locked up his tyres at the first corner trying to pass the faster starting Kimi Raikkonen, and was awarded a Drive Through penalty for forcing the Ferrari off the track. Massa was given a similar penalty for later contact with Hamilton that spun the Briton down to the back of the field. Massa recovered to score two points for seventh place and now has 79 points to Hamilton’s 84 with two races remaining. Lewis finished in 12th place.

Third place for Kimi Raikkonen and seventh for Massa gave Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro eight points on a day when Vodafone McLaren Mercedes failed to score, as Hamilton was penalised and Heikki Kovalainen suffered a car failure. With two races remaining therefore, Ferrari retakes the lead in the constructors’ championship with 142 points to McLaren’s 135. Second place for Robert Kubica means that BMW Sauber is third with 128 points.

Fernando Alonso took full advantage of the first corner incidents involving Ferrari and McLaren to score back-to-back wins for the ING Renault F1 Team. Alonso followed Kubica’s BMW to the first pit stop, from which he emerged in front and went on to score a comfortable win. Team mate Nelson Piquet also turned in a strong drive, adopting a long first stint from 12th on the grid to finish fourth. Renault’s 15 points opened their advantage over us to 16 points in the quest to finish fourth in the constructors championship – a difficult margin to overhaul with just two races remaining.

Both Toro Rossos finished in the points at Fuji, with Sébastien Bourdais beating Sebastian Vettel to sixth place by five seconds. Unfortunately for the Frenchman he was judged to have impeded Felipe Massa emerging from his second pitstop and received a 25s penalty, dropping him down the order to 10th place.    

Race Report

Jarno Trulli finished fifth in Panasonic Toyota Racing’s home race at Fuji to record the team’s best ever result at the Japanese GP. Both Toyotas were competitive in qualifying, sharing the fourth row of the grid, but Timo Glock suffered a short afternoon and retired after just six laps.

Timo had been highly impressive on his first visit to Fuji, quickest of all in Friday practice and then fastest again in Q1, where he was 0.13s quicker than eventual pole position man Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren Mercedes.

“I could not get the best out of the softer tyre on heavy fuel in Q3,” Timo explained, “but it was still good to have us both qualifying strongly in front of our home fans. My fortunes changed in the race though. My start was good but unfortunately I was on the outside and got pushed out when everyone went wide. I ran over some of the debris from David Coulthard’s accident and after that the car felt strange and I lost control on the kerb exiting Turn 6. The car was launched and when it landed the seat fixations broke. I made a pit stop but there was nothing we could do and I had to retire.”

Jarno made a strong start and was able to take advantage when the front row men ran wide, crossing the line in fourth place behind Kubica, Alonso and Kovalainen at the end of the opening lap. He lost a place to world champion Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari on lap 8 but continued to run strongly and actually led the race from laps 19-21 via a longer first stint than the other leading contenders.

Unfortunately for the team, the ambient temperature was fairly low and track temperatures remained below 25 degrees, a situation that does not favour the tyre usage of the TF108. It meant that Jarno was unable to hold off Nelson Piquet, who ran seven laps longer to his first pit stop. Jarno resisted as far as his second stop on lap 50 but Nelson ran two laps longer and emerged in front to claim fourth place.

“After qualifying I was hoping that perhaps I could give the Japanese fans a podium to cheer but things didn’t quite go for us,” he explained. “The low temperature meant that the car was slightly unbalanced and although I gave everything I had from beginning to end, fifth place was the best I could do.”

The team now heads straight to Shanghai for back-to-back Asian races just seven days apart before the season finale in Brazil on November 2.