Trulli kept up his impressive qualifying form at Silverstone when he lined up fifth for the 11th round of the championship, but was disappointed not to be able to run at a stronger pace early in the race.

“It can be a fine balance to arrive at the best set-up and use the tyres to their best advantage at Silverstone,” Trulli said. “We did not have enough pace early on, although we were more competitive towards the end. I also lost a bit of time when I had to back off for blue flags for Fernando Alonso in the closing stages and found myself delayed by traffic. I will just have to put this behind me and look ahead to Hockenheim.”

Ralf Schumacher qualified 9th but lost a couple of places to his brother’s Ferrari and to Kimi Raikkonen’s West McLaren Mercedes on the opening lap, as the Finn recovered from a 10-place penalty for an engine change.

“Like Jarno I had some grip problems in the early laps,” said Ralf. “But I tried everything I could and was going well towards the end of the race. I had hoped that my tyre choice would pay dividends but, in fact, I think it was a disadvantage because I found it hard to keep the car on the road and do consistent lap times.”

Both Toyota drivers adopted a two-stop strategy, Trulli pitting on laps 20 and 42 of the 60-lap race, while Schumacher came into the pits on lap 21 and 47. The longer second stint helped to move Ralf ahead of his team mate to claim the final point, and Jarno admitted: “I think we made a mistake with our strategy today.”

The race brought the first win in a McLaren Mercedes for Juan Pablo Montoya, who beat championship leader Fernando Alonso’s Mild Seven Renault into second place. Kimi Raikkonen finished third in the second McLaren, ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella’s Renault and home hero Jenson Button, who scored points in the second successive race for Lucky Strike BAR Honda. The Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro cars of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello were sixth and seventh, with Ralf taking the final point.

“That was a tough race for just one point,” admitted Team Principal Tsutomu Tomita. “It was satisfying to extend our tremendous run of reliability with both cars but we struggled for pace in the first part of the race. We were much more competitive in the second half and we will have to conduct a careful analysis to understand the complete picture.”

Panasonic Toyota Racing now heads for a ‘home’ race at Hockenheim on July 24 still maintaining a solid fourth place in the constructors’ championship with 54 points. In the drivers’ championship, Trulli is joint 4th with 31 points, while Schumacher is 9th, with 23.