We posted very good results during the first round of qualifying on Saturday. Trulli came in just behind the leader, and was in a great position to fight for Sunday’s pole, which made everyone that much more excited about doing everything perfectly.

Qualifying is a combined total of the first round on Saturday and the second round on Sunday morning. The F1 regulations state that you cannot make any adjustments to the car, including refueling, between the end of qualifying and the beginning of the final. This makes the second round of qualifying very tricky, since you have to take your strategy for the final into consideration before you even take the track to qualify on Sunday morning. The less fuel you load for qualifying, the faster your time will be, but that means you will have to pit earlier to refuel during the final. That also means you will run with a heavier tank during the middle and end of the race, placing great stress on the tires.

So what do you do? Do you try to improve your starting spot on the grid during qualifying, or do you set your car up to run better during the final? That’s always a tough decision, but it was even more difficult since we were fighting for the pole. Finally, we reminded ourselves what our “number one” goal was—to win the race. So we adopted a strategy setting up the car for the final, rather than trying to run an optimal qualifying lap. We were close, but not close enough to take over the pole position. We still kept our number two spot, however, and even though Ralf ran into more understeering problems during the second round of qualifying, he still kept his position at fifth. With qualifying completed, both our cars were in excellent positions to run well in the final.

Looking at the qualifying times of the other teams, we could see that they had all loaded a good amount of fuel, so we were expecting a highly competitive final. From the qualifying results, we felt our toughest competition would come from the Renault team.

• An Uneventful Start—and a White-Hot Finish

I think the start of the final race was fairly uneventful. Trulli and Ralf maintained their positions in second and fifth, respectively. But after the start, the first half of the race became very exciting. With Trulli chasing Alonso from behind, both men drove superbly, showing the crowd why this is the best driver showcase in the world. The overall pace of the race was fairly stable, as we expected going in, but Alonso was fast. Watching him, I felt that we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

Unfortunately for Ralf, he was stuck behind Webber for the first half of the race. That was really too bad, because I think Ralf was ready to run much faster. In the accident on the last corner of the 31st lap, Ralf’s car suffered damage to the front left tire, which caused an incredible amount of vibration. The front wing broke as well, causing even stronger understeering, and forcing Ralf to back off from the pace. But Ralf held it all together splendidly, keeping his position until he was able to pit for the second time. Once we changed the front wing, Ralf took off like a rocket, gaining back on the leaders.

At the end, Trulli was running into tire wear issues, and with a wide gap between him and the third place car, we decided to slow just a bit for the final leg of the race, ensuring our finish on the podium.

• Thank You to All of Our Fans! Our Next Goal: “Victory”

I think that we ran a strong Grand Prix throughout the whole weekend. I can’t express in words how happy I am that we were able to take a podium spot based completely on our own merits. For the past three years, we haven’t had the kind of seasons we hoped. But through it all, our fans have been there, continuing to support us. If I could, I would tell each of you in person how much that means to us at Panasonic Toyota Racing. And of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t express my thanks to everyone on the race team, and to our co-workers supporting Panasonic Toyota Racing from Cologne and Japan. We would never have made it to this point without your hard work.

In my opinion, the Michelin tires were perfect for the conditions. We hit every mark on our plan perfectly, and the result was a trip to the podium. The Sepang course combines straightaways, low-speed corners and high-speed corners, featuring all of the technical elements a driver and car can face on a circuit. If we can perform well here, I think we can perform well anywhere. I have always had a strong desire for us to win. Now I feel like victory is very close at hand. All we need is a few more tenths of a second. Our dreams of victory are closer to become reality by the day.

The next stop is Bahrain. The track is right in the middle of the desert—another grueling circuit before we make our way back for the European leg of the series.

Well, that’s all for today. I look forward to meeting you here again at the Keizo Takahashi Report, where I will be posting more inside information from Bahrain. Until then...sayonara.