Hello, everyone, and thank you for your support over the weekend. I’m here in Belgium, where we just finished racing the Belgian Grand Prix, only one week following the Italian GP. The Belgian Grand Prix was the 14th race of this F1 season, and also represented the final leg of the European Round. Here is my report.

Heading into Belgium with aero and race strategy leading toward the Japanese GP

After racing a high-speed specification at Monza, the team switched to a Spa specification, which will be the same general spec for the Fuji race. The team came into the race weekend at Spa having reinforced the structure of the top crash wing.

The Monza circuit for last week’s Italian GP was an aerodynamically unique course, but the Spa-Francorchamps course where this week’s Belgian GP was held is rather standard high-speed setup. Accordingly, the aerodynamic parts we brought to Belgium are the same specification that we will be using for the Japanese GP, the next race on the schedule. More specifically, we came with a new top crash wing (a part that gave us problems at Monza), and one stay coming out of the chassis to support the wing. We also returned the roll hoop wing that chipped off at Monza back to its normal location.

Concentrating on program execution rather than times leads to a good Friday result

Spa is a long course laid out through the mountains of Belgium.The length of the course means fewer laps available in the time allotted to dial in car settings.

Jarno (Trulli) and Ralf (Schumacher) scored P5 and P6 on the Friday time charts, which made for a pretty good day in my opinion. However, as of that point on Friday, we still did not understand the details about how our tires reacted to different fuel loads at different times. While our lap times were reasonably fast, we didn’t have room to relax. We participated in the July joint testing at Spa-Francorchamps, so the aerodynamic levels were exactly as we expected. That left us with the chassis setup to deal with. We were still experiencing understeer in the long corner series in the second sector, so we knew we would have to address that issue during Saturday’s free practice session.

At seven kilometers, the Spa-Francorchamps circuit the longest of all 17 races. As a result, the number of laps you can run in any given period is quite limited compared to other circuits. Given only one hour for the session, we had to use the time as effectively as possible, moving through our setup work with a strict focus on efficiency. Even though we still had work to do, we finished the Friday session without any trouble, making for a good first day at Spa-Francorchamps. This was the first time in two years that F1 had been back to Spa.

Slower than Friday; a frustrating qualifying

Considering our practice laps on Friday and our performance during Saturday morning’s free practice, I have to say in all honesty that our results in race qualifying were very disappointing.

Losing position in the first corner, Jarno wasn’t able to take advantage of our strategy to compete in the first stint at a faster pace on lighter fuel.

During Q2 (second qualifying period), Ralf's car experienced understeer in the first corner of his last time attack lap, keeping him from recording a personal best, and keeping him from proceeding to the next qualifying period. Our telemetry data showed understeer on the attack lap, so the problem was most likely either due to tire pressure or differences in tire heating behavior, causing the car to fall out of balance. In this year's F1 series, the mid-level teams are all very competitive, which means that even the slightest mistake or change in settings can have a significant effect on position. In particular, we need to do some more research regarding how our tires are heating up.

Jarno, who has moved on to the final qualifying period for the past eight races in a row was able to squeeze through to Q3 after finishing P10 in the second session. In the final qualifying period, Jarno moved up to P9. While P9 at this week's race and P8 last week at the Italian GP may not seem like much of a difference, this result was of course worse than we had been anticipating, and made for a truly disappointing qualifying session for the entire team.

Since there were two drivers on other teams who changed their engines, Jarno ended up starting from P8 on the grid, and Ralf started from P10. Going into the race, I believed we would have a good result as long as we were able to overcome our history of poor starts off the grid.

A good start, but unable to obtain good position; a difficult race

While our start last week was less than satisfactory, I think we got off the grid in fairly good fashion this week. However, we lost a bit of position in the jostling at the first corner, which hurt our chances for a strong result. With a two-stop strategy, Jarno started the race on lighter fuel than the other cars. As soon as Jarno was trapped behind cars carrying heavier fuel loads, his race took a turn for the worse.

Ralf started from P10 on the grid, and made the most of our spur-of-the-moment change in strategy. Unfortunately, our pace didn’t pick up in the third stint, and Ralf ultimately finished the race at P10.

Meanwhile, Ralf avoided problems in the first corner, keeping his P10 start position for the first stint of the race, and finding himself in a position to compete for championship points. Originally, we had Ralf on a two-stop strategy with a long first stint, but considering his status in comparison to the other cars, we came to believe that a one-stop strategy would be more effective, so we changed to a one-stop strategy. Unfortunately, after we changed tires on Ralf’s car, his time didn't come down as we expected. With Ralf unable to overtake Heikki Kovalainen (Renault), Robert Kubica (BMW Sauber) found an opportunity to slip ahead, and we just missed out on scoring points.

The end of the Belgian GP also marks the close of the European round of this year’s F1 World Championship Series. The next race is our "home race," the Japanese Grand Prix at the Fuji Speedway. Before we head to Japan, we will be conducting tests at the joint testing session in Jerez, Spain. The entire Panasonic Toyota Racing team is united in our determination to demonstrate our full potential to our home fans in Japan. Keep cheering us on!