DECLINE IN BUDA

Panasonic Toyota Racing will leave Budapest with three points courtesy of Ralf Schumacher following today's incident-packed Hungarian Grand Prix. After the cool conditions of the first two days, the Hungarian weather had one more surprise for the teams on Sunday, with heavy showers ensuring that much of the race took place on a wet track. Toyota's drivers Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli started from P6 and P8 on the grid respectively with a heavy fuel load for a two-stop race. But both drivers were short of grip at the start and they lost a total of six places each on the first lap. From there it was always going to be a long, hard afternoon's work around the Hungaroring. The task was made even harder when the safety car was brought out just after both had made their first pit stops on lap 25, leaving both a lap down. The two drivers were the first to switch to dry tyres for the final stint and Ralf did well to bring the car home in 6th place. Jarno was less fortunate, suffering an engine failure five laps from home. There is no testing in August so the teams will now take a mini-break before the next race at Turkey's Istanbul Park in three weeks.

Ralf Schumacher (Car 7, Chassis TF106/10B)




Race Classification 6th
Gap: +1 lap (from race winner)
Qualifying Classification: 7th
Lap time: 1m20.759s (+1.160s in Q3)
Grid: 6th

"That was a very turbulent race and after everything that happened we are happy to take away three points. A lot of things went badly, but the rain was especially difficult at the start of the race. The track was really wet and we just could not warm up the tyres. It was like running on smooth ice and we were extremely slow so it was pretty hard work. As the track got drier we improved our pace and the Bridgestone standard wets worked extremely well even in dry conditions. At the moment when we decided to change to dry tyres it might have been quite risky. But it was a risk we had to take and it worked. On dry tyres we were quick and I was able to make up ground and take 6th place."

Jarno Trulli (Car 8, Chassis TF106/08B)




Race Classification 13th
Qualifying Classification: 9th
Time: 1m21.123s (+1.533s in Q3)
Grid: 8th

"This has simply been a chaotic weekend from start to finish. During the first lap I was hit by a car on the infield and I lost several positions. Then during the first stint we had a major struggle for grip which got worse as the rain increased. Then when I could have done with some luck from the safety car I pitted a lap too soon and I was stuck behind it a lap down. I had been starting to make up ground but I was then stuck behind a lot of cars that were slower than me. That lost me a few seconds a lap and with the strategy I had it ruined my race. As the track got drier and the temperatures went up, the car became quicker and we were doing pretty well in the last stint on dry tyres until we suffered our engine failure. We should have finished in the points but in the end everything that could have gone wrong did. We will hope for a more predictable weekend in Turkey and a better result."

Tsutomu Tomita – Team Principal

“It looks like we will have to spend a lot of time analysing what went wrong today. On Friday and Saturday the car, the engine and the tyres were all working well and things were looking good. But today’s race pace ended up very similar to what we had last week at the Nürburgring and we have to understand why we could not race at the speed of the top teams. First we have to learn why our starts were so poor because that was one of the causes of the issues we had in the race. We also have to analyse Jarno’s car performance to find out why he struggled for the second race in a row. We will need to investigate the causes when we arrive back in Cologne. Finally we have to understand why our two drivers had a collision. At Toyota our philosophy is very much based around racing. We are a race team and that means our drivers have to be free to race – but with one limit. Based on the results of our investigations into everything that happened today we will seek to improve for the next race. We will have a busy evening and a busy week ahead.”