Our goal is to demonstrate the power we built during the off season

Hello, everyone. My name is Noritoshi Arai. I have taken over this season as Director Technical Coordination for Panasonic Toyota Racing. I hope we will be able to see Panasonic Toyota Racing achieve great things together. Here is my report from the Grand Prix of Bahrain.

The shape of the TF106 front wing is very different than the one used during initial testing

We started conducting tests with the new car in December of last year. In mid-February at Vallelunga, we introduced the aero package that we’ll be using in the races. As you can see, the new aero package is completely different than anything in the past.

The only difference between the TF106 that we tested and the TF106 that we brought to Bahrain is in the font wing. We didn’t make any mechanical changes to the engine, but we did bring a special air filter to combat the enormous amount of sand swirling around the Bahrain circuit. Throughout our testing, we were able to confirm the desired effect for each change we made. Our drivers were also able to confirm the continuous improvements, so we came to the opening race brimming with confidence that we would be able to show our power to the world.

Focus on collecting data while still conserving the engine

At long last, we have come to the first race of 2006. Looking at the time results after the free practice sessions (Ralf at P22, Jarno at P24), I felt that perhaps we were a bit too conservative in our approach. Of course, worrying about free practice times doesn’t resolve anything, and we were, after all, able to collect all the data we wanted.

One reason behind our conservative approach was that we were running Bridgestone tires for the first time under warm conditions. We also were aware of the fact that our engines were going to have to make it through two races, so we kept our pace down intentionally. We were able to complete our tire testing program as planned, looking at different air pressures and other settings.

Since we anticipated poor track conditions during the morning session, we decided to only do installations (function checks) for both Jarno and Ralf. Our plan was to work on tire setup and perform long runs (continuous laps) during the afternoon session.

Ralf completed his long run without any problems, but Jarno ran into electrical problems soon after he started his run, and his car stopped dead. That was a disappointing development, but we were still able to collect enough data going into Saturday to deal with the issues at hand. There was a lot of work left to do, and we were prepared for a long night ahead.

Unresolved Concerns about the New Qualifying System

What else can I say about qualifying other than that the results were disappointing? Given the morning free practice feedback (Jarno at P7 and Ralf at P9), we believed we were basically ready for afternoon qualifying.

The red flag came up during the first session (15 minutes under the new qualifying system) only a few seconds after Ralf started his time attack. When the flag finally came down (with only five minutes left in the session) Ralf started a new attack run. Unfortunately, Ralf ran into traffic congestion, which kept him from recording the kind of time he was looking for.

As opposed to last year, this year’s qualifying system doesn’t let a driver drive at his own pace. In situations like today, where a red flag stopped everything on the course, all of the cars will be running like mad during the remaining session time, making traffic jams unavoidable. The important question is how to deal with unexpected situations like this. The new system demands an ability to respond flexibly. Looking back, I think we were lacking in that respect.

While Jarno didn’t run into any problems per se, he wasn’t able to record a time quick enough to progress to the final qualifying session. The session showed that we still had a lot of work to do.

Being the first race of the year, I don’t believe our qualifying results in Bahrain will reflect our overall performance this year. But at least in terms of this one race, we did not perform well. I also don’t believe we came close to getting all of the potential out of our cars.

Since both of our cars qualified below P10, we had a certain degree of freedom in starting fuel load selection not allowed the top 10 qualifiers. In other words, having qualified lower, we had a wider range of options in terms of race strategy.

Switch to data collection strategy for a quick recovery

Our results at Bahrain were tremendously disappointing, and I feel I owe an apology to all of our fans who were anticipating a great Panasonic Toyota Racing performance. With Ralf and Jarno starting toward the back of the grid, we decided as a team that it made more sense to look toward the rest of the year, concentrating more on data collection than on results in this one race. After conferencing with both drivers, the decision was made to use a conventional two-stop strategy for Jarno, and a three-stop strategy for Ralf.

Once the race started, neither of our drivers could pick up the pace, so we adjusted the wing angle on both cars at the first pit stop. We also adjusted the air pressure when we changed the tires. Right after the first pit, Jarno was able to increase his pace for a short time, but it dropped off again—more than one second compared to the other car, even at equal fuel loads.

While we figured tire heat would be one issue to deal with, it seems that there were some other factors that we weren’t able to pinpoint fully. As it stands, we haven’t concluded whether the issue was downforce or something mechanical. We are consulting with the TMG engineers to nail down the issue as quickly as possible. The goal is to quickly learn whether countermeasures can be taken care of within the scope of adjustments, or whether something more drastic is called for.

Honestly speaking, I was completely caught off guard by our performance this week. With the next race only a week away, we’ll be doing some serious data analysis. If we can find even small areas for improvement, we’ll implement them as soon as possible. Toyota is always up to the challenge. I hope you continue to stand with us.