10 Sep,2007 (Mon)

Thank you, as always, for your support over the weekend. The F1 season has now entered September-the last stage of the Championship Series. The Italian GP, site of this week's race, is run at the fastest circuit of the 17 races during the year. Here's my report from Monza, the circuit of legendary F1 battles, and site of the Italian F1 Grand Prix.

Joint testing at an ultra-high speed course; preparing for Monza

The week before the Italian GP at Monza, a joint testing session was held at this same circuit. Monza is basically several long straights connected by three chicanes and two corners, and has a character completely different than any other circuit in the F1 schedule. That means that we have to prepare a special aerodynamic package just for this course. Accordingly, the main focus of our program during joint testing was our car setup using our "Monza spec" aero parts. The main points for dealing with Monza are the braking sections at the end of the straights and the curbs going through the three chicanes. We were able to come away from testing with some good results for the measures we implemented. Over the past several races, we've qualified consistently in the top 10, which to me means that our performance has been pretty good. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to translate this performance into results during the races. At this point, we want to focus not only on speed, but also on having a race in which we can overcome our issues and have a strong result.

Unexpected trouble with our aero parts during Friday free practice

Despite the fact that we conducted exhaustive testing in preparation for the race, we ran into trouble right from the start on day one of free practice. Obviously, this is an issue we will have to get under control. This particular unexpected trouble was a crack that developed in an aero part attached to the top front of the side pontoon-a part that we call the top crash wing. During the afternoon free practice session, we had to run laps with this part completely removed from the car. We rushed an updated part from the factory, and were able to install it and drive without any problems Saturday morning.

The combination of this and other issues left Jarno (Trulli) and Ralf (Schumacher) at a disappointing P11 and P12, respectively, on the time charts at the end of Friday afternoon practice. While we were able to progress smoothly though Jarno's setup program, we had a particularly difficult time coming up with a proper setting for Ralf's car. Ralf's car was experiencing understeer, and was performing poorly on the curbs, so we spent quite a bit of time changing the front and rear torsion bars and third element. But with good top speeds, we decided that rather than making aerodynamic changes, we would work to change the car's handling through mechanical means.

Jarno makes top 10 with a bold Second Period attack lap

Qualifying at the Italian GP was extremely tight-a battle even tougher than we at Panasonic Toyota Racing could have predicted. Despite the tough competition, Jarno made a wonderful second attack lap during the second qualifying period, making it into the final qualifying period for the eighth race in a row. I think this is a particularly noteworthy accomplishment for Jarno, and one I want to congratulate him for here. We were shooting for the 1m22s range, so we were slightly disappointed with the time, but the results weren't too far from what we'd hoped.

Meanwhile, as with the prior race in Turkey, we failed to move Ralf beyond the first qualifying period. Being able to push through to later periods is one major factor in being able to perform well during the race, so the qualifying results were not encouraging. Qualifying was a crushing scramble, with the top 16 drivers (moving on to Q2) separated by only 1 second. The gap between the drop-out zone and the 16th driver was a mere 5/100 of a second. While Ralf didn't come out and say this himself, I'm sure that traffic was a major problem that kept him from the next qualifying period. Time-wise, there was almost no difference between Ralf and the few cars in front of him. Being so close to the cars in front, we expected a strong performance during the race.

Slow off the line, out of the points

To have another slow start off the grid after we had focused so much on this aspect of our race was very disappointing. This is one of the most important factors that we will look back on as we review the race. Jarno, starting from P9 on the grid, fell three positions back before even reaching the first corner. And then more bad luck occurred when Alex Wurz (Williams) cut the following chicane and pulled in front of Jarno, keeping Jarno back for quite a while. These incidents combined to play havoc with our one-stop strategy for Jarno. Seeing that Nico Rosberg (Williams), who was one position in front of Jarno on the starting grid, finished P6 in the race, the results stemming from the slow start were doubly disappointing.

While Ralf had no issues off the starting grid, the other cars around him all employed the same one-stop strategy, preventing us from using pit timing to move Ralf up in position. Out on the course, the air turbulence when we got too near the car in front caused severe understeer, so we were forced to keep our distance, repeating a cycle of closing and then falling back.

Our two concerns coming out of the Italian GP are to improve our qualifying performance and our starts. With only a few short days until the next race-the Belgian Grand Prix-we will be doing everything we can, given the time constraints. We want to use Belgium to build momentum toward the Japanese GP. Please keep cheering for us!

Noritoshi Arai at Monza. Based on testing a week earlier, there were high expectations for a top finish. However, the race turned out to be a frustrating affair for the team. One race left to go before the Japanese GP. Panasonic Toyota Racing is gunning for a comeback at Spa-Francorchamps next week.