• Heading directly to Spa, without visiting home
The Spa Francorchamps circuit, home of the Belgian GP, is only one-and-one-half hours away from our team headquarters in Cologne. It’s the second closest circuit next to the Nurburgring. After packing up at Monza, we headed straight for Spa. It would only have taken an extra hour to stop by the factory, but considering the time to get the cars off and back on the trucks, we decided our time would be better spent going directly to Spa, and working from there. We trucked in the aero parts, etc. for Spa to the circuit, where we did the installation work.

Actually, we don’t have any parts designed specifically for this race. We took off the Monza package, and put back aero parts to give us a medium level of downforce. This time around, Ralf will be running on a fresh engine, but the engine won’t incorporate any new upgrades.

The circuit here at Spa is the longest course of the 19 F1 circuits this year. Situated in the middle of the mountains, there’s a big gap between the highest and lowest points on the track, which makes it a really difficult course. With low-speed chicanes, mid- and high-speed turns, you see all types of cornering here. There’s also a long straightaway, so this is a course that demands all-around performance from the cars. And while the circuit isn’t particularly tough on brakes, it is very demanding from an engine and tire standpoint.

The particular sections of this course that give engineers the fits are very similar to Suzuka. In other words, if we’re good here, we’ll be good at Suzuka. This is a wonderful opportunity to measure against the upcoming Japanese GP. One major difference between Spa and Suzuka is the weather. Being in the middle of the mountains, the weather changes very quickly here, and you can always count on rain at some point. I’m sure F1 fans have heard the term “Spa Weather” before.

• Friday: Spa Weather keeps us off the track

In a drizzle, Jarno makes a strong attack run to qualify P4, breaking the hold of McLaren and Renault at the top.

Friday morning, the track was still slightly wet, but the weather report called for rain in the afternoon, so we had our two regular drivers go out on the track a little earlier than usual. Of course, we had Zonta out as well, driving aggressively. At first we ran on intermediate tires, but changed over to dry tires as soon as the track dried out. We tested the option and prime tires, but more than any performance differences, we’ll be keeping our eye on the changing track conditions. To be honest, we still don’t know which tire will work out better. The afternoon downpour kept all teams off the track, so we were only able to collect a fraction of the data that we get on a normal Friday. The weather forecast calls for 70% chance of rain on Saturday, and an 80% chance of rain on Sunday. Not only will we have to make our dry tire selection, but we will have to be prepared for rain as well. Since we couldn’t run during the second session today, we’ll be busy Saturday morning with tire selection, but our final decisions will most likely have to come out of our negotiations with the weather gods.

• Saturday: The forecast was wrong! Dry qualifying + right setup = great grid position!

	As the track surface improved, Ralf gambled on dry tires. Unfortunately, the strategy didn't pay off.

Looking at the results, I’d have to say that our qualifying session went very satisfactorily. Yesterday’s weather report was wrong, and we learned that qualifying would be dry in the morning, with rain toward the very end of qualifying, if at all. Thankfully, we didn’t have to occupy ourselves with the weather today.

While the track was wet in the morning, it was completely dry by Practice 4, so we had both cars go out at the same time to collect dry tire data. Jarno tested the option tires, while Ralf tested both option and prime sets. Both cars suffered a bit from understeer at first, but by the end of Practice 4, we were able to dial in the set up, and run a qualifying simulation.

Before the start of qualifying, the clouds started looking very suspicious, so we kept our eyes on the radar at five-minute intervals, making sure we knew how the clouds were moving. While we were fortunate that it didn’t rain, Ralf’s car had a slight understeer tendency, and he lost a bit of time in Sector 2. Jarno went out onto the track after Ralf. The car was well-balanced, and Jarno was able to make a perfect, mistake-free flying lap. The rain we were so worried about didn’t fall after all.

According to the weather forecast, it’s going to rain tomorrow, so we put together our setup assuming a rainy day. I’m not a fan of rain, but given our settings, I hope it doesn’t clear up tomorrow. But we are prepared for whatever comes, rain or shine. If it’s dry, it will be a little bit of a struggle with the cars, but we have them ready to go. We qualified P4 and P6, but Renault’s Fisichella changed out his engine, so we’ll actually start in even better positions at P3 and P5. We’ll be doing everything we can on Sunday to finish higher than we qualified.

• Sunday: We went out to win; our gamble doesn’t pay off

Ralf finally changed over to dry tires, marking the fastest lap of the day.

The rain forecast called for a dry race. But the track was completely wet to start out, so the biggest concern was when the circuit would dry out. Our setup leaned heavily to a wet-weather track, so we wanted to get out in front while the track was still wet. Taking that cue, Jarno made a daring attack on the two McLarens in front of him at the start. Ralf lost a few positions before his tires came up to temperature, but he was back on pace in the second and third lap, regaining his starting position.

Ralf came into the pits early, on the 10th lap. Actually, we started the race light on fuel, using a strategy that could incorporate two, or even three, pits stops. We were lucky that as soon as Ralf came in, the safety car came out on the circuit with the Fisichella crash. Except for Villeneuve, all of the other cars came into the pits, allowing Ralf to take 3rd position without any trouble at all.

Back out on the track, Ralf started attacking McLaren’s Montoya. To be honest, this is when we made our first little mistake. When the safety car came out, Jarno pitted, and we changed him over to dry tires. The decision was the result of discussions with the driver over the wireless right up until the second he came into the pits. Jarno’s position at first was that it was still too early to change to dry tires, but we believed the weather would clear up during the second half of the race, and on top of that Ferrari, BAR and Williams had all chosen to go with dry tires. The mistake was not necessarily in our decision to go with dry tires, but rather in delaying our response after Jarno reported slipping on the circuit. The other teams came back into the pits on their next lap, changing over to intermediates. We left Jarno out one lap longer than the others, causing him to fall quite far behind.
At this point in the race, Ralf was in 2nd right behind McLaren. Ralf was running faster than the McLaren, and we were excited to think that Ralf would be able to overtake. At his second pit, we put in enough fuel to stay out the rest of the race, and changed him over to dry tires. Our sign for switching over for Ralf was lap times at 1m55s or 1m56s. At the time, Ralf was running 1m55s, so we decided it was time to change tires. But the track surface still hadn’t dried out, so we had Ralf come back in on the next lap, and changed over to intermediates. As a result, Ralf lost several positions. Even now, I don’t think our decision was a mistake. Rather, it was a calculated gamble in an attempt to win the race. The results didn’t go as we hoped, but we knew that once the track dried out, our settings would put us at a disadvantage, and the cars ahead would extend their lead. We had to take the initiative to keep our position at the top, but in hindsight, our decision was mistaken.
At any rate, I guess you could say that our team still isn’t quite up to the task of winning. But I also believe we have come a long way, being able to vie for the top during the race.

The next race is in Brazil, and we’ll be testing at Silverstone before then. We’ll not only test the B spec machine, but also test tires and engines with an eye toward Suzuka. We are still within striking distance of 3rd place in the Constructors’ Championship. With three races left, we will be doing everything in our power to reach the top. I hope you all continue to cheer us on.

As always, thank you for visiting the official Panasonic Toyota Racing website. I’ll be back with a Keizo report in two weeks from Brazil. Until then…