Panasonic Toyota Racing today began its preparations for the San Marino Grand Prix on a sunny day at Italy's Imola circuit. Fresh from his podium in Australia, Ralf Schumacher missed most of the day's running due to electronic problems but Jarno Trulli successfully completed his programme of tyre comparison and set-up work. The drivers will now look to make continued improvements over the rest of the weekend as Toyota bids for more points. Yesterday Toyota's Technical Director Engine Luca Marmorini received the Gold Medal from the Italian region of Emilio Romagna at the Lorenzo Bandini trophy evening. Now the team will be looking for even more to cheer after Sunday's race.

HIT'S A SET-UP
Jarno Trulli has high hopes for his home race after making progress with his set-up during last week's test.

Jarno Trulli (Car 8, Chassis TF106/04)




First Session Classification: 5th, 7 laps completed
Lap time: 1m26.417s (+1.666s)
Second Session Classification: 7th, 24 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m26.029s (+0.986s)

"I haven't had much fortune in the first three races, but I am more confident about this weekend. At last week's Barcelona test we took a different direction with set-up. That led to a big step forward, and today the handling of the car was pretty close to how I like it. We had to do more laps than usual because of Ralf's problems but we look good so far. We have some small steps on the car here and Bridgestone have brought some new tyres so that should give us a chance to get closer to the top teams. Historically Imola has never been a good track for Toyota, but I'm confident we can turn that record around."

MARINO PROBLEM
Ralf Schumacher missed most of the day due to electronic glitches but he remains optimistic.

Ralf Schumacher (Car 7, Chassis TF106/05)




First Session Classification: 20th, 1 lap completed
No lap time
Second Session Classification: 22nd, 5 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m27.639s (+2.596s)

"Today was obviously not the perfect way to start the weekend. But Jarno showed that we have good potential here so I still have strong hopes. We saw in Melbourne that we can now get much more out of our package. We've made further improvements during testing so we hope to continue that progress here. We are making steps forward but we are still behind the top teams so we should aim for another strong finish in the points. That would be a good result as we continue our upward momentum."

MIXED KERBS
Panasonic Toyota Racing enjoyed ups and downs during practice for Sunday's San Marino Grand Prix.

Dieter Gass - Chief Engineer Race and Test

"That was a day of mixed emotions for us. Some of the Imola track has been resurfaced so the grip was lacking early in the session but the modification to the Variante Alta is good. We had a very positive day with Jarno, who was happy with his car's balance. He was able to complete his programme of set-up and tyre evaluation, even though he struggled with traffic on his last run. Unfortunately we lost most of Ralf's running because he had some electronic problems so we have less data than usual for the tyre choice. We have an aero update here and overall this was a promising start to the weekend."