Hello, everyone. As always, thank you for visiting the official Panasonic Toyota Racing website. Takahashi here at the Monaco GP with a report on an eventful Thursday and Saturday for our team.

• Thursday: Practice session
At the Spanish GP two weeks ago, we got a 3-4 finish, and have continued building strong momentum for Panasonic Toyota Racing. While I’ll be the first to admit that our cars aren’t perfectly compatible with the circuit here in Monaco, we think we were able to develop a “Monaco Specification” during our recent testing at Paul Ricard. We have arrived in Monte Carlo with high expectations. Due to the party that is being hosted by the royal family on Friday, the Monaco GP will be conducted on a Thursday—Saturday—Sunday schedule this time around.

• Aerodynamics emphasize downforce; “Monaco Specification” settings
The biggest changes we have made in anticipation for Monaco is in our aerodynamics. More than anything, Monaco is a slippery track, which means we need all the downforce we can get. To generate more downforce, we have attached a pair of small wings to the front and back of our cars. For the suspension, we added a bit of clearance to combat the bumpy Monaco streets, and we have given the cars a softer overall setup. To handle the hairpins, we have changed out the arm to increase the turning radius of the steering wheels. We have also allocated more of the car’s weight to the rear, which will help us get better traction during acceleration up from slow speeds. Lastly, we have revised the engine mapping to allow for better drivability under the conditions in Monaco. We call these special settings our “Monaco Specification.” Truth be told, these settings might be a little tough for the drivers to get used to.

The tires have also been prepared specifically for Monaco. They consist of a super-soft compound that isn’t used on any of the other circuits. Tire wear isn’t a great concern because of the lack of grip on this track, and even though the race is a long 78 laps, each lap is quite short, so the overall distance is not that long. Basically, the Monaco course is a fairly easy one on tires, so we don’t anticipate any degradation issues. And the short distance also means the course is forgiving on fuel. The engine is on full throttle only about 50% of the time. We can go about 40 or 50 laps on a full fuel load, so this is a circuit that lends itself to the possibility of a one-stop strategy, depending on how qualifying turns out.

• Thursday: Difficulty finding the right settings. Maybe our cars just aren’t suited for Monaco?
The results of Thursday’s practice saw us ending the day not having been able to balance any of our three cars. The one common complaint among all three drivers was a lack of mechanical grip. In particular, we tried a completely new setup for Ricardo’s car, but the car behaved extremely nervously. For the afternoon practice, we returned the settings basically to where we have had it in the past. We didn’t make any major changes for Ralf or Jarno starting out, but we still couldn’t get the cars completely balanced. At any rate, we were able to get complete data for the tires, so it doesn’t look like there will be too much difficulty in tire selection. Michelin has provided three different types of compounds and two different casings for the Monaco GP, all quite distinct from each other functionally. Now we just need to see how they wear.

While we haven’t thrown out any particularly fast times or made a big impact in position, I don’t see anything to worry about based on our long-run times. However, the high number of laps means that we really need to find the most stable race settings for the sake of our drivers. Monaco is a course that calls for super-soft tires; however, this year cars must complete their race on one set, which means you have to select a somewhat harder compound. I think this is why we see some nervous behavior out of the cars. Even so, what we have been seeing as far as car performance is really unexpected. We knew going in that our cars weren’t exactly matched for this circuit, but we thought we would be better at this point. We have tomorrow off, so we’ll use the time to think about ways to improve.

• Saturday: First qualifying session
Bad news. We have been assessed a penalty because the tires Ralf used on Thursday were not allocated correctly after the Friday break. This is a completely routine task that Michelin failed to do correctly, so the entire issue comes a tremendous shock. The penalty means Ralf will have 0.5 seconds added to his qualifying time, placing us at an extreme disadvantage. Believe me when I say that this was only the beginning of Ralf’s troubles on a very bad day.

We gave Ralf’s car a softer setup for the Saturday morning practice session, which seemed to do the trick and provide better car balance. We took note of this for Jarno’s car as well, and both Jarno and Ralf were able to improve their positions to 4th and 6th, respectively, after their flying laps. Unfortunately, Montoya unexpectedly hit his brakes right in front of Ralf, and the slowdown resulted in a collision between Coulthard and Villeneuve, with the momentum taking them into Ralf. At this point, there wasn’t any readily visible car damage, but…

Another addition for Monaco: a new wing located above the tail lights (The team calls this a "rear crash wing")

First qualifying session Saturday afternoon. Starting 15th, Ralf had been very quick around the circuit, and our anticipation was building, but just before heading into Tabac corner, Ralf brushed his left front tire lightly against the guardrail, throwing him hard into the guardrail on the outside. I can’t help but think that the earlier penalty had been looming in the back of Ralf’s mind as he was flying around the track. Jarno, who had his qualifying lap after Ralf’s crash, seemed to be overly cautious. Particularly in Tabac corner, where Ralf had his crash, Jarno took his time, losing more than 0.4 seconds. Seeing how fast Alonso and Raikkonen completed their qualifying laps, I really think we missed out on a golden opportunity. All the more so, since we had our car settings dialed in. I thought we had a great chance for both of our drivers to line up in the second row on the grid.

Jarno has a pretty significant time difference with the cars ahead of him. We are going to struggle with our race strategy for him. With Ralf most likely starting at the back of the grid, it’s an easy decision to give him a full fuel load before final qualifying. The monocoque for Ralf’s car is broken, so we’ll replace both the monocoque and the engine of his car by tomorrow. If we used the T car, we’d have to start from the pits, so we decided to go ahead and exchange the monocoques. We originally planned on unveiling our new spec engine at the next GP in Nurburgring, but changing engines for Ralf here at Monaco means we will have to use that same engine in the next GP. It looks like only Jarno’s car will get the new spec engine for Nurburgring.

The weather reports have said that the highest likelihood for rain this week will be Sunday morning, so I’m a little concerned. Weather could be a key factor for the race.

I’ll be back here at the official Panasonic Toyota Racing website tomorrow with the post-race Takahashi Report from Monaco. Until then…