Formula 1
Brazilian GP: Toyota Saturday qualifying notes
Olivier Panis and Cristiano da Matta will start from 15th and 18th positions respectively for the 32nd Brazilian Grand Prix after a frustrating qualifying session for the Panasonic Toyota Racing team at the Interlagos track today. Handling ...
Published: Apr 6, 2003, 10:48 PM
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Olivier Panis and Cristiano da Matta will start from 15th and 18th positions respectively for the 32nd Brazilian Grand Prix after a frustrating qualifying session for the Panasonic Toyota Racing team at the Interlagos track today. Handling difficulties on Da Matta's TF103 and a driving error on Panis's run prevented the team from capitalising on a notable performance in early morning practice, when the team scored its debut first place in a race weekend timed session.
Olivier Panis:
"When I started my qualifying lap, everything was fine with the car. I tried to push hard but I made a big mistake in the second sector and we are down in fifteenth as a result. I really want to say sorry to the team because we did a great job in free practice this morning and the car is really good in terms of performance, so obviously I am extremely disappointed for the team and myself but tomorrow is another day and I will try to drive to the limit tomorrow to get some points."
Cristiano da Matta:
"Due to the bad weather conditions yesterday, we simply haven't had enough track time to find the optimum set up on the car for this track. I experienced problems with the grip levels and the general handling of the car this morning, so we made some changes to the set-up, which did not make any difference. I am really unhappy to be starting my home GP from so far back on the grid, but we'll see what happens tomorrow."
Keizo Takahashi - General Manager, Car Design and Development
"Unfortunately, we were not able to reproduce our speed from this morning's practice. We had trouble with the set up on Cristiano's car, and could not find the correct balance to allow him to get the most out of the car. Olivier made a mistake in the second sector of his flying lap and lost one second. It is disappointing because we should have been much higher up the grid for this race. Nevertheless we will keep at it and hope for a top eight finish tomorrow."
Olivier Panis
Car Number 20, Chassis TF103/05
Session Classification: 15th
Lap Time: 1m14.839s (+ 1.032s from pole)
Starting position: 15th
Cristiano da Matta
Car Number 21, Chassis TF103/02
Session Classification: 18th
Lap Time: 1m15.641s (+1.834s from pole)
Starting Position: 10th
T-car: TF103/01
-toyota-
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