Austrian GP: Toyota Friday notes

Panasonic Toyota Racing had two constructive free practice sessions at the Austrian A1-Ring today. Drivers Allan McNish and Mika Salo worked on different programmes with their TF102s and with varying fuel loads. McNish ended up in 5th position with Salo 19th.

Allan McNish

"I am quite happy with the handling of the car today. The A1-Ring is a circuit I like and one I know well. We tested here last year with our TF101 test car and that has proved to be an advantage. We expected to do reasonably here, but the field is very tight and every thousandth of a second counts."

Mika Salo

"We managed to complete the programme we had today with some long runs. I am content with the car set-up, but we do have some small handling problems at high speed that we have to fix. But overall I am quite confident for qualifying tomorrow."

Keizo Takahashi - Technical Co-ordinator

"We tried different set-ups for Mika and Allan and both cars showed satisfying results. The A1-Ring is a power circuit and the track suits our car better. We will analyse the data from today and push to the limit in qualifying tomorrow."

Allan McNish - Car No. 25
Position: 5th, 1m11.140s, 44 laps completed
Chassis: TF102/02
T-car : Chassis TF102/05 set up for Allan McNish

Mika Salo - Car No. 24
Position: 19th, 1m12.375s, 48 laps completed
Chassis: TF102/04

Weather: Dry and sunny, but some cloud
Temperatures: Air - Min 19C, Max 22C
Track - Min 210C, Max 290C, Average humidity 44%

-toyota-