Thank you, everyone, for your support over the weekend. Takahashi here with a race report from the Hungarian GP.

• Ralf’s first podium with Panasonic Toyota Racing; many factors combined for success
I can’t tell you how happy I am that we finished just like we had hoped. Several factors combined to help us get to the podium today. First of all, our cars were fast. On top of that, our strategy worked just like we planned, and we were also able to use our tires extremely effectively. And, of course, our drivers gave it their all through to the end. All of these factors combined perfectly to get us a 3rd and 4th finish today at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Our biggest concern during the race was about Jarno. Right after the start, he got bumped from behind in the first corner. Looking at it from our monitors, it appeared that his diffuser was damaged in the collision. Jarno told us he didn’t feel much of a shock, but we were worried about any ongoing effects that might hurt the car’s performance. Once we analyzed the data, we discovered that the damage wasn’t as bad as we feared. But there was a noticeable change in Jarno’s balance. The change moved pretty significantly from understeer to oversteer, so we made some air pressure adjustments during Jarno’s first pit stop. During his second pit we adjusted his front wing in addition to making more air pressure changes. Ultimately, Jarno was able to keep pace with the top cars throughout the race.

Meanwhile, Ralf was able to keep terrific pace without any problems at all. He was even able to catch up to the Ferrari running in 2nd place after it came out if its third pit stop. From our experience, we know that anything can happen if you increase your pace and pressure a car from behind, so we instructed Ralf to increase his RPMs, and we urged him to catch and overtake the Ferrari. But in the end, Ralf never got a real chance to pass.

Jarno and Ralf, running 4th and 5th right after the start of the Hungarian GP. Immediately after the start, Jarno's car was hit from behind in the first corner, but there wasn't any significant damage, and Jarno held on to finish 4th.

• Building back our confidence over the practice sessions
We had been running quite well from the start of Friday’s practice sessions, but we weren’t sure how much fuel the other teams were carrying, so we didn’t know how fast we were comparatively. On Saturday, we made more improvements to our setup, and ran simulations that led us to the conclusion that we had potential for Sunday. That was the point where we really started to feel confident.

To be successful with a three-stop strategy, you have to have fast cars—and we came to the track with fast cars this weekend. We decided that if we had the cars to do it, then we’d go with three stops. As long as the cars were fast. The drivers’ job would be to race all out, just like a flying lap during qualifying—and they responded splendidly to the challenge.

We were also happy to see that we were able to get everything we could out of our tires this weekend. We had some issues with tire race performance in France and England. After those races, we did quite a bit of testing with tires similar to what we had been racing. At Hockenheim we got caught up in traffic, and didn’t really make an impact position-wise. We felt that we didn’t use the tires as much as we could have. Here in Hungary, I think we were able to use our tires much more effectively, keeping pace from start to finish. I think we have learned our lessons from past failures, and I think we’ve overcome our tire issues now. The next challenge is to make our cars faster so we can catch McLaren.

• Aiming for the center of the podium, continuing our evolution
There is no doubt that we have to continue the evolution of the TF105. Not only did we get back to the podium after a long absence, but also we were able to have both cars finish well in the points. Even though we’ve started development for next season, there are still six races to go this year. I think these next races will have a huge impact on next year, so we still need to improve the car, catch McLaren, and get to the center position on the podium. We can’t give up now.

One of the greatest things about our finish today is that it was the first podium for Ralf as a Panasonic Toyota Racing driver. He had his share of bad luck this year, but he was really perfect today. And even though Jarno had a damaged diffuser right from the start, he was able to keep pace with the front cars. I think both of our drivers really showed what they can do today, and we’ve built up some good momentum. Now we need to keep it up going into Turkey for the next GP.

As always, thank you for visiting the official Panasonic Toyota Racing website. Please keep up your fantastic support of our team, and I’ll see you back here with my report from the Grand Prix of Turkey. Until then…